Animal Ethics new direction aimed at increasing our impact

30 May 2018

Animal Ethics is now undergoing some important and exciting changes with the aim of maximizing our impact in achieving a better world for all sentient beings. This new shift in both our organization and our strategic focus comes at a point at which we believe we have completed our initial goals and are in a position to undertake more ambitious challenges and projects.

Animal Ethics has a new director

We’re very happy to announce that Cyndi Rook, a long-term experienced animal advocate in the U.S., has been named as the new director for Animal Ethics. She has worked with Animal Ethics for over two years, first as a volunteer and then as our Outreach Coordinator for all the English-speaking world. Cyndi will oversee our activities and advocacy work internationally. We’re very excited that we’re entering a new stage in our work with this new leadership!

Influencing influencers: working to reach people in academia

Last year we decided it was time to focus on having an impact in academia, especially concerning wild animal suffering. This was reflected in our 2018 strategic plan. Every year we prepare our plan for the next year during the fall and evaluate how it is going by the end of the spring. We have been recently reviewing our aims for the present year and adjusted our plan accordingly. You can download it here. Our intention for some time has been to focus less on reaching the general public (with interventions such as street activism) and focus more on reaching influencers. With this new revision of our plans we have decided to accelerate this process.

Part of our work regarding this has been to promote research and debate in universities about antispeciesism and its consequences, with our main focus being the promotion and development of work on wild animal suffering. In line with this, during the last few months alone, our spokespersons have been giving talks and participating with presentations in different events at several universities, including the Imperial College in London, the University of Bristol, the University of Sydney, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and the Federal University of Santa Catarina and the Federal University of Espirito Santo in Brazil. We’re also planning to organize talks in different cities in the USA directed at students and animal advocates during 2018.

In the following months we also expect to give you more news about how our research work and our activities to further concern for wild animal suffering are progressing.