Animal Advocacy — Live from Hawaii

David Cassuto

I’ve spent the last 5 days in Hawaii at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, the quadrennial gathering of environmental leaders from all over the world. The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) recently applied for membership in IUCN and was denied.  I have been lobbying for support for ALDF’s appeal from that denial.  It’s a bizarre world where organizations like Safari Club International — which advocates trophy hunting as a form of conservation — is granted membership where ALDF, an organization that actively works to protect animals both in and out of the wild, is denied.

So far the support has been very gratifying; many IUCN member organizations have stepped forward to support the appeal.  However, we remain a few signatures short of
what we need to put the matter before the Congress and time is running down.  If you have a connection to any IUCN member organization, I’d be very grateful if you could reach out to them and ask them to support ALDF’s bid.

Global environmental policy must become more sensitive to the needs of nonhumans.  Membership for ALDF would be a big step toward that goal.