Important topic! I appreciate the balanced consideration of both direct and indirect evidence, as well as both advocacy and academic perspectives / info.
I agree bans at the retail level seem promising for a number of reasons. Apologies if I missed it, but have you seen data on which countries/areas are the main markets for silk? I.e. the demand side rather than the supply side? (On the one hand, bans in areas with high use might have larger impact, but historical evidence and my general intuition suggest that bans in areas with low usage will be much more tractable—happy to provide further info if helpful)
Thanks for the question—I didn’t look into it in too much detail, but my impression is that India is actually the largest importer of silk (mostly from China), and not a very large exporter, suggesting that there and in China are the largest markets. I believe the EU, Japan, and South Korea are fairly large as well.
I didn’t look into interventions directly outside of the speculation on them listed here, but I’d be interested in the reasoning / evidence that bans in areas with low use being more tractable. I assume that this means there is some ideal level of use / cultural relevance that means both maximal impact vs highest tractability.
Interesting! Obviously a whole host of pros and cons to animal advocacy in India generally.
The evidence I’m referring to is from our social movement case studies—we have a post in draft form atm. Feel free to either wait for the finished post (~1 month?) or email me at jamie@sentienceinstitute.org and I’ll send you the draft!
Important topic! I appreciate the balanced consideration of both direct and indirect evidence, as well as both advocacy and academic perspectives / info.
I agree bans at the retail level seem promising for a number of reasons. Apologies if I missed it, but have you seen data on which countries/areas are the main markets for silk? I.e. the demand side rather than the supply side? (On the one hand, bans in areas with high use might have larger impact, but historical evidence and my general intuition suggest that bans in areas with low usage will be much more tractable—happy to provide further info if helpful)
Thanks for the question—I didn’t look into it in too much detail, but my impression is that India is actually the largest importer of silk (mostly from China), and not a very large exporter, suggesting that there and in China are the largest markets. I believe the EU, Japan, and South Korea are fairly large as well.
I didn’t look into interventions directly outside of the speculation on them listed here, but I’d be interested in the reasoning / evidence that bans in areas with low use being more tractable. I assume that this means there is some ideal level of use / cultural relevance that means both maximal impact vs highest tractability.
Interesting! Obviously a whole host of pros and cons to animal advocacy in India generally. The evidence I’m referring to is from our social movement case studies—we have a post in draft form atm. Feel free to either wait for the finished post (~1 month?) or email me at jamie@sentienceinstitute.org and I’ll send you the draft!
Thanks!