Joining Forces: Collaborative Opportunities Between The Animal Protection And Environmental Movements

A new report from Faunalytics shows promising avenues for collaboration between animal protection organizations and environmental groups—the study interviewed environmental groups in the U.S., China, and Brazil and found that many are open to working with the animal protection movement or already are.

https://faunalytics.org/environmental-movement-collaboration/

Key Findings

Many environmental organizations are open to collaborating with a wide variety of animal advocacy organizations. Of the eight organizations we interviewed, four were open to collaborating and four are already collaborating with animal advocacy organizations. While they represent approximately a third of the organizations we contacted, this suggests that a sizable proportion of environmental organizations whose work aligns in some way with animal advocacy (e.g., conservation, sustainability, tackling deforestation) are receptive to the idea of working with animal advocates. Half of interviewees mentioned they would like to collaborate with organizations focused on wild animals, while some are open to partnering with organizations focused on dietary shifts. Others are open to partnering with advocates helping farmed animals, companion animals, or any animal advocacy organization as long as they share some commonalities. These can include sharing similar interests, tactics, values, and/or audience.
Environmentalists are especially interested in collaborating with animal advocates on legal advocacy, education, and promoting plant-based diets. Multiple organizations would like to take legal action and develop and/or improve policies and regulations to protect the environment and animals, particularly when it comes to industrial animal agriculture. They’re also open to collaborating on educating the public on the intersection of animal advocacy and environmental issues, as well as working with animal advocacy organizations to promote a reduction in animal products and a shift towards more sustainable diets. Although these were some of the most mentioned collaboration strategies, they are just a few of the many potential tactics described by interviewees.
The most common challenge animal advocates and environmentalists may encounter in a partnership is having differing views. Six out of the eight organizations we interviewed recognized there may be differing views and approaches between the environmental and animal protection movements that could pose a challenge for collaboration. In particular, they brought up concerns about differences in opinion about certain topics, differences in the strategies generally implemented by each organization, and differences in what they consider to be the best messaging strategy to address a common audience (e.g., environmental vs. animal welfare messaging; promoting veganism vs. animal product reduction). Organizations also voiced concerns about society’s (negative) perception of animal advocates, the power of the animal agriculture industry in government, the movement’s marginalization of BIPOC and other historically disadvantaged groups, and more.
By collaborating with animal advocacy organizations, environmental organizations hope to gain more support, resources, funding opportunities, and to add new perspectives to their efforts. Nearly all interviewed organizations would benefit from sharing resources and support with an animal advocacy organization, such as sharing connections to each other’s networks, knowledge of animal advocacy and environmental issues, and experiences with various advocacy tactics (e.g., diet campaigns). Partner organizations could also seek funding together, granting each other access to funding opportunities normally unavailable to them.
Environmental organizations’ willingness and ability to collaborate with animal advocates depends on a number of factors, but especially on there being some alignment between them. It’s important that potential partner organizations share similar values, interests, audience, and/or advocacy tactics (e.g., education or policy work). Other factors that can influence the potential for collaboration include the animal advocacy organization’s reputation, whether the animal advocacy group has an inclusive approach (of historically disadvantaged groups and of people who lead non-vegan lifestyles), and the environmental organization’s capacity to take on a collaboration given the time, money, and personnel involved.
High-priority countries for farmed animal advocacy are also the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters. Our research found a strong relationship between countries’ emissions rankings and their potential for effective farmed animal advocacy — China, the U.S., and Brazil are responsible for over one-third of global emissions (about 40%) and slaughter the highest numbers of farmed animals. The animal agriculture industry is responsible for serious environmental damages in each of these countries, and we see this especially play out as the Global North drives animal agriculture and associated environmental destruction and degradation in the Global South.

Background

Climate change and environmental degradation have harmful effects on the lives of humans and non-human animals alike. Across the globe, we’re seeing the extinction of countless species, destruction of habitats, more frequent and severe natural disasters, food and water insecurity, and more. One key driver of this worldwide destruction is the animal agriculture industry, which indirectly helps unify the causes of animal advocacy and environmental protection.

Agriculture is a large source of greenhouse gas emissions and has extensive environmental impacts throughout the world. Over one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the food sector, and most of these emissions can be attributed to the animal agriculture industry. Emissions from the food sector alone will take the world beyond the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold by 2100 (Clark et al., 2020), meaning serious societal, economic, and ecological consequences for the planet.

In addition to the emissions resulting from animal agriculture, the industry is responsible for deforestation, land degradation, air and water pollution, water stress, and biodiversity loss. Nearly half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, and of that land, it’s estimated that 77% is used by the animal agriculture industry for maintaining livestock and for producing animal feed (Ritchie et al., 2022).

Aside from animal agriculture’s impacts on the climate and environment, there are various other areas of overlap between environmental issues and animal advocacy. For instance, wild animal poaching causes immense harm to individual animals and entire species that may go extinct. This can result in changes to ecosystems, as animals who play a particular role in their functioning are removed. The same is happening in the world’s oceans and freshwater ecosystems as a result of overfishing, further contributing to biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and climate change (especially when trawling is involved). Another example is the environmental impact that free-roaming companion animals like dogs and cats can have, contaminating ecosystems with their feces and greatly reducing biodiversity by hunting other animals.

Given the overlap that exists between animal advocacy and climate and environmental issues, as well as research indicating that environmental sympathizers are more likely to take pro-animal actions (Faunalytics, 2023), this study sought to evaluate the potential for collaboration between organizations working in the animal protection space and those in the environmental movement. Focusing particularly on Brazil, China, and the U.S. due to their high potential for environmental and animal advocacy efforts alike, we used a combination of desk research and interviews with environmental organizations to identify areas of overlap between the two movements and to consider environmentalists’ perspectives about partnering with animal advocates. By doing so, this study complements recent research looking at environmental organizations’ willingness to incorporate animal agriculture messaging into their tactics (Mercy for Animals, 2023).

Research Team

The project’s lead author was Constanza Arévalo (Faunalytics). Dr. Andrea Polanco assisted with the interviews and analysis, and Dr. Jo Anderson (Faunalytics) reviewed and oversaw the work. Interview support was also provided by Zach Wulderk (Faunalytics).

Conclusions

With this study, we set out to determine whether there is potential for collaboration between the animal protection movement and the environmental/climate movement in Brazil, China, and the U.S. As our results indicate, the short answer is ‘yes’—interviewed environmental organizations made it evident that there is indeed interest in such collaborations, with some organizations already partnering with animal advocates. The long answer is more complicated, though still promising, and it involves a combination of environmental organizations’ understanding of what animal advocacy is, the perception that exists of animal advocates both within the environmental movement and by the general public, and potential challenges that should be addressed before an official collaboration is set in motion.