Known affectionately as the mother of animal law, this weeks guest Joyce Tischler has over 45 years of experience advocating for animal rights through the law in the US. Starting off in 1979 by co-founding the Animal Legal Defense Fund where Joyce would serve as executive director for 25 years, we hear about the first cases Joyce worked on as well as her bold decision to take on the US Navy. Joyce now lectures at the Lewis and Clark Law School in the Centre for Animal Law, specialising i...

There are not many people who have spent time in prison for their commitment to help animals, but Tom Harris is one of them. We spoke with Tom about his time in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign (SHAC), one of the most well-known animal rights campaigns of the last 20-30 years.We speak about why he thinks the campaign was so effective in applying pressure to companies, things he would do differently, common misconceptions about the SHAC campaign and the importance of grassroots advo...

Jakub Stencel is the recently appointed interim director of Anima International. A refreshingly candid conversation about organisational culture, transparency and its limits, as well as the constant journey of testing and learning that Anima undertakes. Jakub talks us through his thinking on culture in an expanding organisation, split across multiple countries and how his first important task as interim director is to assess whether Anima International should continue to exist, or, if ot...

Rune-Christoffer is an impressive person. In addition to being almost 10ft tall, he led the Vegetarian Society of Denmark’s efforts in getting the Danish government to invest over 110 million Euros in plant-based foods and develop an Action Plan to boost plant-based foods in the country. Given this is one of the most significant policy wins the animal advocacy and plant-based movement has seen in recent years, we chat about how they built the political will to achieve this. We speak abou...

Giulia Malerbi is attempting to prevent octopus from being intensively farmed for food. As head of Global policy at The Aquatic Life Institute, Giulia’s important work aims to stop intensive octopus farming before it even begins and has hopefully contributed to the passing of some groundbreaking legislation to support this ban. A really refreshing episode about the complexities of advocating for such an unknown species with the ins and outs of why farming this inquisitive species is so p...

Wu Hung trained as a monk before his journey into animal advocacy began and it is these teachings in the ‘inconsistencies of life’ that led him to believe he could change the future for animals in Taiwan. Through liaising with government officials, top business people and the general public, as well as predictable pushback from the industry, navigating the complexities of a relatively new movement in Taiwan has not been easy for EAST. We hear about these challenges and also how mem...

Léo Le Ster is a campaigner at L214, a French NGO focused on helping farm animals. Léo talks to us about L214’s creative campaigning tactics and the importance of open and collaborative brainstorming when it comes to generating new ideas.Léo gives us an update on the state of the movement in France and insight into their organisation with a multi-tactic approach from investigations and campaigning to education programmes and lobbying.Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:>...

In this short 10 minute clip we announce a brief hiatus and use this time to chat through some episodes we want to highlight which we recommend checking out in the short break.We also have a small ask of our listeners - please could you fill out this feedback form so we can best understand how and if to take the podcast forward? It should take around 5 minutes to complete and will influence how we might progress. Episodes will resume as normal from the 27th August.If you enjoy the show, ...

Mahi Klosterhalfen from Albert Schweitzer Foundation brings us exciting progress for animals in Germany. Mahi walks us through his work on cage-free, broilers and also now fish and shrimps and why Germany seems to be one of very few countries where meat consumption per capita is declining. We also dive into some thought provoking questions around running an organisation and why as a movement leader, sharing of mistakes is so important. Super interesting chat from a really knowledgeable l...

Tania Luna brings us a wealth of knowledge this week as she walks us through the best working practices of organisations seeking to support animals that must integrally include the human animals that work to protect others.Tania’s team apply their wealth of experience in the tech space to the animal advocacy space supporting organisations to prioritise employee health and well being in pursuit of our common goal: increasing the sustainability and efficiency of our work. Tania offers top tips,...

An absolute treat of an episode this week as we were asked to interview long-time advocates Leah Garcés and Sharon Núñez, live from the Animal and Vegan advocacy summit in Washington DC in May earlier this year.From anger in Leah’s 20’s to some eye opening potential prison-time in the past for Sharon, our esteemed guests walk us through their experiences over the last 20 years of their tireless work for animals. A nostalgic and powerful look back and projection forward from these two powerhou...

Matthew and Jane co-founded the online campaign Veganuary in 2013, which has encouraged millions of people across the globe to try being vegan for the month of January and beyond. More recently, Matthew launched Veg Capital, an organisation that provides early-stage capital to companies striving to replace the use of animals in our food system and founded vegan chicken brand VFC. Jane remains on the board for Veganuary as chair.Episode filmed live at the Vegan and Animal Rights Conference in ...

Sofia Balderson is the co-founder of Hive, formerly known as Impactful Animal Advocacy, an organisation that aims to improve coordination and collaboration in the farmed animal movement through cultivating impactful, intentional, and serendipitous communitiesMany listeners may be on the Impactful Advocacy Slack – a Slack workspace with over 2,000 animal advocates and a great place to connect, learn and share ideas. Today, we spoke with Sofia Balderson, one of the originators of that Slack Cha...

Short but sweet episode this week from Ignacia, author of a recently released book, CEO of a leading organisation in Latin America and mother to two small kids. We're delighted that Ignacia took time out to talk to us about her experiences right across her contributions for animals. We chat about Fundacion veg and their campaigns in both diet change and animal welfare as well as the decision for Ignacia to scale down her organisation and what led to this decision. We talk about the impor...

Bob Fischer is the Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University. Can insects feel pain? Should people who care about chickens, cows and pigs also care about reducing the suffering of crickets or black soldier flies? In this episode with Bob Fischer from Rethink Priorities, we try to answer some of those questions, as well as talking about the rapidly growing insect industry, and possible ways for advocates to help farmed...

Kristie Middleton is  vice president of business development for Rebellyous Foods where she and her team help institutions add more plant-based options to their menus. Kristie’s also the author of MeatLess: Transform the Way You Eat and Live—One Meal at a Time and a long-time animal advocate.  Rebellyous Foods has created novel manufacturing technology in order to make plant-based chicken more affordable to the masses. Mainly targeting food service providers such as universities and school...

Jaya is a seasoned operational executive with a rich history of promoting animal welfare in the food retail sector. As the Co-founder and Chief Program Officer of Global Food Partners, a Singapore-based multinational consulting firm, he helps food and hospitality businesses implement their cage-free egg policies across Asia and reduce the cost of cage-free sourcing. A fascinating episode as we unpick the many advantages of working collaboratively with the industry to advance animal welfare....

Lauren Mee is the CEO & Co-founder of Animal Advocacy Careers, an organisation that tries to match mission-aligned talent to opportunities that accelerate the end of factory farming. Lauren offloads all she knows about the hiring landscape right now when it comes to careers in animal advocacy. She talks us through some best practices and common pitfalls in the hiring process as well as her take on some of the more strategic questions when it comes to career progression in this...

Aaron Ross has spent over 20 years working for farmed animals. His relentless dedication to this cause has seen him co-found two major organisations, The Humane League and the Open Wing Alliance and train and advise countless others around the world on corporate relations and movement strategy. In this episode, we talk through an important topic, longevity, and discuss the advantages and pitfalls of this long-term dedication to this long-term fight. Aaron offers practical advice for those...

Description: Tomasz Herok recently spent over 5 months working undercover on British factory farms, as part of an investigation by Open Cages, the UK branch of Anima International. [Trigger warning: graphic descriptions of animals suffering on factory farms throughout the episode] In this episode we understand the complexities involved in being an undercover investigator, what Tomasz’s role on the farm entailed during his time there and how he personally deals with the trauma presented. We...

Simon Newstead, entrepreneur turned impact investor, is a founding co-partner of Better Bite Ventures who back food-tech founders in Asia. In this episode, we deep dive into the world of alt protein and the different technologies available in the alternative protein space. We look at Asia specifically where Simon’s work is focussed as well as the challenges this industry is facing as a whole. We also quiz Simon on his view on the timelines we should work towards to see this global shift in...

In this episode, we speak to Wanyi Zeng, Executive Director of Welfare Matters, an organisation that is focused on building capacity for the farmed animal advocacy movement in Southeast Asia.  We speak about the findings of Welfare Matters’ detailed and insightful report into the animal agriculture landscape in 6 key Southeast Asian countries, challenges facing the movement in Asia as well as Welfare Matters’ exciting plans to incubate new projects in the Asian farmed animal space. Links...

Stien is the executive director of Animal Charity Evaluators, also known as ACE. Stien, wants to help people help animals and ACE tries to do that by finding and promoting the most effective ways to help animals. In this episode we speak with Stien Van Der Ploeg who is their fairly newly appointed executive director. We talk through the latest release of the recommendations for this year and go into some detail on why certain charities and their interventions were selected. We talk about why...