Modern Politics in Animal Welfare: The Changing Character of Governance of Animal Welfare and the Role of Private Standards

Political scientists generally agree that there has been a change in the political arena of modern societies: a shift from government towards governance, a process often referred to as political modernization. Some evaluate this development as positive, allowing for more direct democracy and more effective policymaking, whereas others are concerned about democratic legitimacy and accountability. This article examines whether the rise of private standards in animal welfare politics does provide a good example of political modernization, and whether it indeed creates a more democratic and more effective mode of policymaking. Using the framework of political modernization, we examine whether the collaboration of retailers and non-government organizations (NGOs) in developing private standards in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands, can be interpreted as a new political arrangement involving a new coalition of actors, a new discourse about animal welfare, and new rules of the game. Our analysis of these private animal welfare standards confirms, and challenges, the assumptions often made about the modernization of politics. Our analysis shows that private standards have indeed replaced the implementation of stricter animal welfare legislation. The collaboration of retailers with NGOs and farmers’ unions may be interpreted, to some extent, in terms of more direct political participation by citizens and stakeholders. However, given the powerful position of retailers in the European food market (a power that transcends massively that of farmers, consumers and citizens), there is also a clear need to analyse carefully the social, economic and legal consequences of this governance shift, which gives private actors regulative authority without them being bound by the democratic rules that serve as a check on whether state regulation serves the common good

Paving the way for farm animal welfare in international relations: an EU–Brazil case study

As a sensitive area in international trade, animal welfare measures have encountered resistance in negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Consequently, alternative avenues have been pursued to reach international trade policy convergence. To further understand the contemporary trade politics of animal welfare, an empirical investigation was conducted on the interplay between European and Brazilian actors in the context of livestock production. By drawing upon diplomatic studies and the global governance literature, this study identifies and analyses initiatives that parallel the WTO approach and through which the development and implementation of mutually acceptable farm animal welfare measures have been pursued. Research findings indicate that a constellation of international non-diplomatic actors are currently engaged in influencing the future development of farm animal welfare measures. Among the initiatives that enable the alignment of European and Brazilian animal welfare policies and practices, there are soft instruments such as knowledge sharing and private standards. The rise of new actors and the use of soft instruments have been, to a certain extent, able to mitigate the tardiness of a WTO consensus regarding the use of animal welfare measures. However, there are concerns that the use of private standards has become a shortcut to circumvent the rigours of the multilateral trading system. This concern deserves a closer look because instead of paving the way, private standards may hamper trade relations which in turn hamper progress in animal welfare matters

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost