Celebrating a Global Ambassador for Animal Welfare

AWI’s work to protect animals and their environment couldn’t be accomplished without our supporters and the advocates whose calls to policymakers and legislators reinforce our work. Even as we seek to counter unprecedented efforts to erode federal protections for animals in the United States, we also look to maintain progress on a global scale.

I recently returned from London where I had been invited to speak at a reception for The Right Honorable Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park. The event was hosted by The Lord Gascoigne and organized by the UK-based Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, with support from Compassion in World Farming and the Africa Network for Animal Welfare. Among other notable figures in attendance was the UK animal welfare minister, The Baroness Hayman of Ullock, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Lord Goldsmith has long campaigned for improved animal welfare and environmental protections within the United Kingdom, including a ban on the commercial trade of elephant ivory. Internationally, he was key to the passage of a 2022 UN Environmental Assembly resolution on animal welfare that recognized the interconnected relationship between animal welfare, human welfare, and the environment. This landmark resolution led the United Nations to commission a report aimed at deepening the understanding of these connections, including how animal welfare improvements relate to humankind’s efforts to address key global challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, and the emergence of pandemics and zoonotic diseases.

AWI works alongside animal welfare champions such as Lord Goldsmith to germinate cooperative international actions rooted in an understanding that advancing animal welfare goes hand in hand with efforts to create a better world for people and to nurture a planetary biosphere capable of sustaining us all. Your support is helping us do that, and we are very grateful.