15 minute read
DISPATCHES: Wellington, New Zealand
By M. C Ronen
Kia ora! Nau mai haere mai!
Greetings from Wellington, the beautiful capital of Aotearoa New Zealand. Yes, that peaceful island country in the South pacific, with the accent recently named sexiest in the world (but all too often confused with the Aussie one); a country small enough and far enough at the bottom of the map to sometimes fall off it completely (you’d be surprised how many world maps omit us); a country small but mighty, who delivered the world such giants as the mighty All Blacks, Peter Jackson, Lorde, Pavlova (don’t start! It’s ours!) and not one but two main characters of The Boys!
Clean and green, beautiful and untouched… so we are perceived.
Mostly, it is true, the green part for sure, but clean? For a country whose primary industry is dairy, you won’t be wrong in suspecting this could be debatable. Intensive irrigation, freshwater pollution, loss of wildlife and biodiversity – all are direct results of intensive dairying. Not surprisingly, in New Zealand emissions from agriculture make forty-nine percent of total emissions. Not the place we’d want to be for fighting climate change.
Small as we are, we were the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. We’re also one of the first few to cement by law the fact that animals are sentient beings. Pretty progressive, eh? Due to this recognition of sentience, you’d find plenty of adoration for New Zealand on social media. It is a little disheartening, therefore, to have to gently explain to people that animal cruelty still happens here, sentience and all. Like anywhere else, animals here are exploited throughout their short lives, then led to their brutal deaths in the name of ‘food’; tracked and shot in the name of ‘sports’ or even ‘conservation’; urged to run ‘till collapse in the name of ‘entertainment’; tortured in the name of ‘science’; or just plainly abused for the sake of abuse. Human supremacy and widespread speciesism are as deep and all-encompassing here as they are everywhere else.
It is a beacon of hope that veganism and animal rights activism are flourishing here.
Let’s talk about Wellington, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, smartly marketed as ‘Best Little Capital in the World’ (I concur). For this small town (the metro area population of Wellington in 2020 was 415,000) we already have five 100% vegan restaurants and countless other eateries offering a substantial vegan menu. We have a centrally located vegan store, and general supermarkets that are falling over each other as to which one caters better to plant-based needs. We have a monthly vegan market, which includes vegan food trucks and live entertainment. We have a local vegan group on Facebook that currently has 6.7 thousand members, and we even have our own vegan fiction author (well, that’s me, but we’ll have more on that some other time).
But it’s not just about the food. Being vegan, most of us would agree, is the bear minimum that we could do for the animals. A key step forward in our actions is speaking up on their behalf, raising awareness, demanding change. Indeed, the grassroots activism scene in Wellington, as is the case all around New Zealand, is slowly growing.
I’m here to tell you a little bit about the activism scene down here, a vegan postcard if you will. But before I get to the smaller groups, I should probably focus on three key organisations leading the way here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. I wouldn’t consider these grassroots, but more of the membership-based type organisations: SAFE, NZALA and NZAVS. SAFE (Saving Animals from Exploitation)
Saving Animals from Exploitation, better known as SAFE, is possibly the organisation most recognised with New Zealand. Founded in 1932, when a handful of volunteers incorporated as a branch of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. Today SAFE has twenty staff members, spread in three main offices (Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland) and many more, probably hundreds, of supporters and volunteers. It is hard to think of a campaign for the animals which SAFE were not the initiator of or a part of. From the call to ban colony cages for chicken, to banning greyhound racing, to banning rodeos, to ending live exports and many other prominent campaigns. Their presence is known, they engage with politicians and the media, and their voice is loud. In recent years SAFE has been supporting the New Zealand Animal Law Association in their legal battles against the government, with some notable successes. They are undoubtedly leading the camp. SAFE also do educational work, with the highly acclaimed and unique Animals & Us textbook series, and engaging youth group for children aged 8 to 14. A couple of years back they started an ‘Eat Kind’ programme, to help people choose a plant-based diet, which includes their own ‘Plant Based Challenge’ support.
The one key criticism grassroots groups have towards SAFE is that they were slow to move away from purely welfare-reform campaigns and delve further into animal rights and veganism advocacy. However, times are changing and SAFE is indeed becoming bolder with their vegan, rights-based approach.
The New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA)
The New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA) is a coalition of lawyers, law students and law graduates working to improve the welfare and lives of animals through the New Zealand legal system. NZALA currently have over 500 members signed up throughout the country, spanning various practice areas, including lawyers working for large commercial law firms, criminal and civil litigators, in-house counsel, lawyers working for government and the judiciary, and include a Queens Counsel.
Though not a vegan organisation per-se (the all-volunteer executive members are vegan,) the New Zealand Animal Law Association has been making many a headline in recent months, with their bold legal actions against the government and their legal successes. In November 2020, following a judicial review proceedings filed by NZALA, with support from SAFE, the High Court has ruled the New Zealand Minister of Agriculture and the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) have acted illegally when they failed to phase out the farming practice of farrowing crates for mother pigs. Farrowing crates were inconsistent with the Animal Welfare Act 1999. This was a landmark court case against the government, and a huge success.
Also in November 2020, following a private prosecution by NZALA, The Whangarei District Court has found a Northland farmer guilty of ill-treating rodeo animals after he used a live electric prodder on two distressed steers. The Court also found that he used his prodder unnecessarily on 22 other rodeo animals, including calves. The private prosecution was triggered by the government’s lack of action against the farmer.
In February 2021, NZALA issues a report revealing a substantial gap between the overarching standards of animal welfare, as prescribed by the Animal Welfare Act 1999 and the codes of welfare and the regulations that sit under the Act (which were written by the Ministry for Primary Industries). The report, recommending a comprehensive review of the codes of welfare and regulations, was launched in Parliament with support from MPs from the Labour, the Green and the National parties.
In their successful attempts to rattle the boat, NZALA have become a force for the animals to be reckoned with.
The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society (NZAVS)
The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society (NZAVS) is New Zealand’s primary non-profit organisation defending animals used in science. Founded in 1978 in Wellington by an activist named Bette Overell, the Society was based on the precept that vivisection is scientifically and medically misleading, dangerous and fraudulent. NZAVS adopted the principles established by medical historian Hans Ruesch and his scientific colleagues around the world. Ruesch’s CIVIS Bulletins and his first book exposing the facts about vivisection were Bette’s inspiration for forming NZAVS. The Society is highly active, with multiple campaigns fighting to end animal experimentation and seeking to rewrite the future for thousands of animals. Some of NZAVS recent successes include:
• Successfully convinced RANZCOG (the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) to end their plans to use live sheep in invasive training methods at their conference.
• Launching a children’s book, The Six-Foot Rats, which was distributed to all primary schools in New Zealand.
• In 2018, after talks with NZAVS, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), announced their support for the rehoming of ex-lab animals in New Zealand.
A year later, a government report sparked controversy by mentioning the possibility of testing party pills on animals. NZAVS made sure this didn’t happen.
• Most recently, NZAVS launched a campaign urging the Government to ban the Forced Swim Test in New Zealand and conduct a full review on the validity of all animal tests for psychological research.
As formidable as the above three respectable organisations are, when we talk about grassroots activism, we really refer to the voluntary coming together of individuals in small groups, giving up their own time, physical and emotional resources, for the purpose of taking action for the animals.
Speak Up for Animals (SUfA)
When I became vegan, some nine years ago, and decided to join an activist grassroots group, I joined a small team of like-minded people who organised under the name Speak Up for Animals (SUfA). There were just the few of us back then, and most of our actions included either collaborations with other groups (e.g. protesting with SAFE outside the local zoo after four baboons were euthanised there) or doing street outreach. Our outreach was either under what we named as ‘Cupcake for a Conversation’, which saw us stopping sweet-toothed passers-by and making a conversation with them about speciesism, for the price of a free, scrumptious vegan cupcake, or alternatively under the ‘Earthlings Experience’ banner. Earthlings Experience was an international concept, whereby we stood with our laptops open out to the public, screening the Earthlings movie. We offered flyers and conversations to those who dared stop. We used our own laptops as we had no funding to buy nice screens. We printed our own flyers. We made do with what we had. There were times back then, when the entire team braving the elements with laptops and goodwill involved just three people. On such days, it was easy to assume the vegan revolution would never happen.
One of our biggest initiatives as SUfA, back in 2017, was bringing James Aspey over from Australia, to inspire activism within the vegan community in Wellington. Awkward as it might seem to us today, with the current hubbub of activism in the city, Aspey’s visit really did work. It ignited interest that only grew since. One of the key changes in recent years, is the number of grassroots groups that exist and collaborate in wellington, and indeed in New Zealand, today. It’s good news when Wellington Vegan Actions and Anonymous for the Voiceless must compare calendars, so that not both groups run a ‘Make the Connection’ and a ‘Cube of Truth’ respectively, at the same time.
Within SUfA, we decided to put our resources towards the creation of the local Wellingtonian chapter of the Animal Save Movement.
The Wellington Animal Save is the local chapter of The Animal Save Movement. The Save Movement began in Toronto, Canada in December 2010. In 2016 it expanded internationally and has now grown to over 900 chapters around the world, in over seventy countries, and this includes the major cities in New Zealand. We are a non-violent, peaceful grassroots animal rights group. We bear witness at the gates of our local slaughterhouse with permission from the slaughterhouse managers who know about and allow our presence. We’re not sure as to what their motivation is, but we are grateful we do not need to risk our lives for the trucks to stop.
Bearing witness is about being present with the victims before they go into the slaughterhouse and sharing their final moments on the death trucks. We document the victims’ fear and anxiety, their natural curiosity, stress, and pleading eyes, and we show it to the public via social media. Our message to the public is to rethink their choices when it comes to eating animals.
Connecting with this living being, documenting their moments and sharing with the public allows us to give a voice to the voiceless. These living beings that we painfully say goodbye to, are individuals and need to be seen for who they truly are. Animals are sentient; they are warm, breathing beings that feel pain and love, just as much as our cats or dogs or even us. We are here to tell the truth about animal agriculture. We demand individuals, governments, corporations and other institutions to transition to a kinder, sustainable, plant-based food system.
Bearing witness is difficult and can take its emotional toll on activists. We try and support each other and be there for each other as much as we can, before, during and after each vigil. We also try and support other chapters. The Wellington chapter activists, as well as members of other chapters from Taranaki and Palmerston North, sometimes travel to support the few members of a tiny chapter in the small town of Whanganui (about three hours’ drive north of Wellington). There, the founder of the Save Movement in New Zealand, Sandra Kyle, often stands alone at the slaughterhouse gates. Nicknamed ‘The Singing Vegan’ Sandra is well known locally for gently singing to the animals while they are waiting nervously in their pens to be slaughtered. Sandra is frequently a target of bullying and abuse directed at her by the groundsman and slaughter-trucks drivers. Reading Sandra’s weekly reports on Facebook, documenting in detail each abusive interaction she tolerated with clenched teeth, one cannot avoid sensing a heavy misogynistic and ageist flavour behind the abuse, in addition to the obvious speciesist one. It’s no surprise, really, as all oppressions are connected and often when you find one ‘ism’ on display, you are more than likely to find many more.
What I like most about grassroots activism in New Zealand, is that groups often collaborate with each other and join in each other’s actions. Most of us activists have quite a variety of t-shirts in our wardrobe, belonging to various groups and organisations, and we wear them as we need. It is especially exciting to see young people join in and even form new groups.
Wellington Vegan Actions
One such exciting, new-ish group is the Wellington Vegan Actions. It is a vegan, Animal rights-based actions and events group for the Wellington region, with over seven-hundred supporters through their Facebook community. Their flag routine activity is outreaching under the ‘Make the Connection’ banner (MTC). The essence of this action is showing on large TV screens what farmed animals in Aotearoa New Zealand go through every single day, in farms and in slaughterhouses. The activists who are not donning TV screens, stand around and embark on conversations with keen passers-by. The aim is to encourage the public to open their eyes and start questioning their choices. They leave, committed to change, with some printed resources showing them where they can keep their research going. This activity is rather similar to the Cube of Truth activity, which is still run all over New Zealand by local chapters of the international organisation Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV). The difference is that MTC is fully locally based and is not bound by the AV guidelines or answers to overseas organisers. It is therefore more flexible and more in tune with the local community and indigenous Māori culture.
A major undertaking by Wellington Vegan Actions volunteers was the organisation and production of the Wellington Animal Rights March 2020. While the rest of the world was crumpled by Covid19, being virus-free allowed us here in Aotearoa New Zealand to have the march in one central location, drawing hundreds of people to it. In November we marched the streets of our capital, demanding animal liberation now. The march drew quite a lot of media attention as it took place (with Wellington City Council’s approval!) on the same day and in the same route, as the Christmas Santa Parade. It meant hundreds of unsuspecting parents and children, out in droves to celebrate, were suddenly confronted by a peaceful parade of a different kind – one which requested them to be kind and show compassion to the animals. The media, sniffing controversy, loved it. With bold headlines, we were described as a vegan mob, out to ruin children’s Christmas, omitting the fact that many children were actually participating in the march, or that some families of spectators cheered for us, and that the only violence in display was the cooked corpses people were eating in our faces, and the man who decided to punch one of the march announcers at the front (he missed). At the end of the day, it was a major success with plenty of free press. Would we be having another march this year? You bet! End Live Exports Now
The most recent New Zealand wide action still undergoing is the Ban Live Exports protest. You may have heard the incredible announcement by the New Zealand government, deciding to end live exports from our shores. However, the phasing out period granted was ‘within two years’ meaning thousands of terrified cows and sheep are still forced onto packed death-ships, taken overseas to countries where we have no control over their destiny of minimal welfare. Under the slogan ‘Two Years is Too Long’, activists all around New Zealand, representing a wide range of organisations and grassroots groups, are fighting to challenge the two years phase-out and demand live exports end immediately. What does the future hold?
If you wonder where are the more ballsey actions of storming slaughterhouses and rescuing animals, where are the Meat the Victims and the Animal Liberation Fronts? Those did exist here in previous decades, and I think the ground is ready for more of that in months to come. So please keep following us in New Zealand, I’m sure there will be much more to tell before we finally achieve total animal liberation.
Kia kaha e hoa mā!
