WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)
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Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Revisited
Get PDFAvian flu threatens biodiversity and human well-being. What is it, and what can be done
Plant sentience? Between romanticism and denial: Science
Get PDFA growing number of non-human animal species are being seriously considered as candidates for sentience, but plants are either forgotten or explicitly excluded from these debates. In our view, this is based on the belief that plant behavior is hardwired and inflexible and on an underestimation of the role of plant electrophysiology. We weigh such assumptions against the evidence to suggest that it is time to take seriously the hypothesis that plants, too, might be sentient. We hope this target article will serve as an invitation to investigate sentience in plants with the same rigor as in non-human animals
Unveiling the Nexus: The interdependence of animal welfare, environment & sustainable development
Get PDFOn 2 March 2022, the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted the Animal Welfare - Environment - Sustainable Development Nexus Resolution. In this resolution, UNEA acknowledged that animal welfare can contribute to addressing environmental challenges . UNEA further acknowledged animal welfare\u27s contribution to promoting the One Health approach and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. To understand these links, UNEA requested the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to analyse and produce a report for the next convening of UNEA on the nexus between animal welfare, the environment, and sustainable development. Unveiling the Nexus: The interdependence of animal welfare, environment & sustainable development illuminates the value of an animal welfare perspective for addressing the drivers of environmental challenges and sustainable development. It highlights important links between animal welfare and biodiversity, climate change, pollution, health, food security, and livelihoods. This assessment, undertaken by the World Federation for Animals, aims to support those developing and contributing to the UNEP Nexus report. It aims to provide stakeholders with a basis to further explore why improving animal welfare is essential for the environmental and development community
Measuring Biodiversity and Biodiversity Trends
Get PDFThe 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity was held in two parts (in Kunming, China, in October 2021 and in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022). One primary goal for COP15 was the development of a Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) covering the coming decade (from 2023 through 2030). The GBF produced by the participating countries at COP15 included four long-term global goals for 2050 linked to the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity, along with 23 global targets for immediate action and completed by 2030. One outcome of the negotiations was the identification of the need to increase public awareness of the global biodiversity crisis leading to sustained activities to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss
Language matters
Get PDFThe term sentience tends to be associated with affective valence along with affectively neutral sensory states. In the absence of evidence for affectively laden states in plants, the use of the term sentience in the exploration of plant sensory and behavioral complexity is misleading and ethically problematic for its potential to trivialize animal sentience
Plastic Waste and the World’s Seas
Get PDFThe modern plastics industry may have been a boon to consumers, but the world is drowning in non-degradable plastic waste
The elephant in the garden
Get PDFThe other commentators on Chapman & Huffman (2018) have pointed out in different ways that despite our biological nature, there is a widespread tendency for humans to believe that we are not only superior to animals, but that we are not animals at all. Alongside our denial of animal sentience and cognition, this has resulted in the denial of our own instinctive natures. It is this denial that is our error, for it is only by understanding our true natural heritage that we can begin to change the runaway path we are on
Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility by Martha C Nussbaum
No full textAndrew Rowan reviews author Martha Nussbaum’s book “Justice for Animals,” which describes why & how animals might be the beneficiaries of human justice
Laboratory Animals and Non-Animal Alternatives
No full textThe use of animals in laboratories is declining worldwide as new non-animal methods become more sophisticated and relevant
Animal Welfare - Environment - Sustainable Development Nexus: Scoping Study
Get PDFA detailed report on the links between animal welfare, environmental health and global sustainability. Issues discussed include climate change, biodiversity, pollution and waste management, one health, sustainable development and just transitions