The Party for the Animals has become bigger than ever in the provinces in last week's elections. The party also made gains in the Water Authorities, and it is likely to gain another seat in the Senate. And so, the Party for the Animals is maintaining the steady growth it has experienced since its foundation. "This is a fantastic election result," said party leader Esther Ouwehand, "more and more p...
First of all, I would like to express my heart-felt sympathy to all the people affected by the terrible earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. The suffering there is incalculable. Fortunately, there are many courageous people hard at work in this region to help the most vulnerable humans and animals among the victims. Our friends from the Animal Save Movement have set up a centralised fundraising campai...
Expats and exchange students can vote in the upcoming elections in the Netherlands on March 15. Internationals are allowed to cast their vote for the water authorities – a lesser known but important political body where many decisions are made concerning nature, the environment and animals. The Party for the Animals calls upon everyone living in the Netherlands to make their votes count. For anima...
While people are still being rescued from the rubble in Turkey and Syria, rescuers of Animal Save Turkey have started a parallel and less documented operation, risking their lives to save the huge number of pets and farm animals that have been abandoned, ‘orphaned’, trapped in buildings and deprived of food and water by the unimaginably devastating earthquakes that hit the border region. “We are w...
The end of the controversial and severely outdated Energy Charter Treaty is near. After having been put under pressure from NGOs and politicians, including the Dutch Party for the Animals, the European Commission admitted last week that an exit from this international energy treaty “appears inevitable”. The treaty protects energy companies and allows large-scale polluters to file billion-euro clai...
I’m back! Today, I resumed my duties as Political Leader of the Party for the Animals. My last blog was published in September, after which I was unfortunately forced to retire for a while owing to health problems caused by persistent overwork. Although that was far from an easy decision, it was a wise one. If we want to stand strong in our battle against the exhaustion of the Earth, we have to re...
Edinburgh recently made the news as the first capital city in the world to sign the Plant Based Treaty. In doing so, the Edinburgh City Council acknowledges that our food system plays a pivotal role in the climate and biodiversity crises and therefore in tackling them. Rather than meat and dairy products, plant-based foods will become the fundamental type of food served at government and school ca...
European plans to make the clothing industry more sustainable seem to have forgotten about the millions of animals used in the sector. Even though the production of fur, leather, wool and down causes immense suffering and environmental pollution, and increases the risk of zoonoses and pandemics. Therefore, the Party for the Animals submitted a series of proposals last week to ban widespread animal...
The new animal protection law in the making in Spain threatens to exclude the majority of animals in this country from protection and weaken rather than strengthen their position. Wild animals, bulls, laboratory animals and hunting dogs are offered no protection in this bill. The Spanish animal rights party PACMA is calling on the government to withdraw this bill, and is campaigning all across the...