IVU Online News
December 2009
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COPENVEGAN?
NOTES FROM THE WEST AFRICA VEGETARIAN CONGRESS
RECENT EVENTS IN INDONESIA AND CHINA
JASHU SHAH MEMORIAL FUND
INTERVIEW ON MEAT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY TO VEGDINING.COM
INTERVIEW WITH THE HEAD OF THE WINSOME CONSTANCE KINDNESS TRUST
‘EARTHLINGS’ SPEAKS IN MANY LANGUAGES
SERVING VEG FOOD TO NON-VEG CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
THREE LITTLE PIGS REVISITED
DATABASE ON ANIMAL FREE AGRICULTURE - 1700+ REFERENCES
ANOTHER CLIMATE EXPERT SAYS ‘MINUS MEAT’
WORTH-A-LOOK BOOKS
THEIR BEEF WITH BURGERS
NEW ASSOCIATE MEMBER SOCIETY
UPCOMING EVENTS
WELCOME TO ORGANISATIONS THAT HAVE RECENTLY REGISTERED WITH IVU
OTHER ONLINE SOURCES OF VEG NEWS
PLEASE SEND NEWS TO IVU ONLINE NEWS
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COPENVEGAN?
Richard Schwartz, head of IVU member society, Jewish Vegetarians of North America - www.JewishVeg.com - also heads the Veg Climate Alliance: http://vegclimatealliance.org
The latter organisation will be one of many promoting veg at the Copenhagen Climate Conference this month. The Veg Climate Alliances activities will include a forum, demonstrations, street theatre and much more to turn Copenhagen into CopenVegan (using the Vegetarian V symbol).
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NOTES FROM THE WEST AFRICA VEGETARIAN CONGRESS
Nicolas, from the Ivory Coast, contributed this report, excerpted below, from the West Africa Vegetarian Congress, 29 Oct - 2 Nov in Ghana, with leadership from IVU Regional Coordinator for Africa, Emmanuel Eyoh, and with some financial assistance from IVU. Thanks to Patricia Tricker for translating the report from French.
The Congress was funded entirely by donations to an IVU appeal. Thanks very much to all the donors.
FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER
Approximately 75 of us met in the centre of Accra, the capital of Ghana. Everyone was wearing a Vegetarian Association of Ghana T-shirt - Ghanaians, Nigerians, Ethiopians, Cameroonians, etc. Togo put up a good show with a delegation of nine students, all vegan, representing the brand new and very enthusiastic University of Lomé Association of Vegan and Vegetarian Students (AEV-Togo), which already has about forty members.
We marched, carrying banners and distributing flyers, for about an hour to the Health Ministry. A car with loudspeakers led the demonstration. On the Health Ministry was a sign at least 12 square metres in size urging people to eat more fruit and vegetables and less meat.
For lunch, we went to ASSASEPA (http://www.ivu.org/africa/ghana-vag/index.html), one of the five or six vegetarian restaurants in Accra. Afterwards, we distributed food at an orphanage.
SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER
That morning, we set up tarpaulins and chairs at Kwame Nkruma Memorial Park. This large green park right in the city centre is the ideal place for a veggie and eco conference. The talks started at about 10.30 in front of some 250 to 300 people. 50 yards away from the speakers, in the same park, around twenty stalls had been set up by producers of veggie food, owners of veggie restaurants, practitioners of traditional African herbal medicine and Esperantists. People kept arriving, and we can reasonably estimate that 500 people visited the stalls and listened to at least some of the talks.
Speakers included:
- the former chairman of Ghana's supreme court: 81 years old, vegetarian
for 50 years
- Emmanuel Eyoh, Nigeria, IVU Regional Coordinator for Africa
- Dr Anteneh Roba, chair of www.ifundafrica.org
For the full report and lots of photos go to http://www.ivu.org/africa/ghana-2009.html - more reports and photos will be added to that page as they come in.
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RECENT EVENTS IN INDONESIA AND CHINA
The 4th Asian Vegetarian Congress was held on Batam Island, Indonesia, 6-10 Nov. More than 1,000 people attended this highly successful event. Some photos are available at http://www.ivu.org/asia-pacific/photos2009/batam/opening.html - more reports and photos will follow soon. This should especially interest anyone planning to attend the next IVU World Veg Congress in Jakarta/Bali, Indonesia in October 2010.
IVU also attended the China Xiamen International Vegetarian Fair, 12-15 Nov. For photos from that one see:
http://www.ivu.org/asia-pacific/photos2009/xiamen/opening.html
For both the above photo collections, click on the link at the bottom of each page to go to the next page, and on any small photos for bigger versions.
Between these two events, we made many important new contacts in China, and we look forward to this great country playing a much more significant role in IVU in the future.
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JASHU SHAH MEMORIAL FUND
Jashu Shah was from India, and his first involvement with IVU was way back in 1957. Over the following years, he held many important offices and organised major events for IVU, and in 1999, he founded and became the first President of the Asian Vegetarian Union. Sadly, Jashu passed away in 2008. The 4th Asian Veg Congress, Batam, Indonesia, 2009, decided to honour him by creating this fund in his name.
This will to be a long term fund with the general objective of 'Promoting Vegetarianism in Asia'. Below is just our first objective; others will follow.
IVU's most important resource is our people. We do well in finding volunteers from all over Asia, and we can do most of our work on the internet - but there is no substitute for occasional face-to-face meetings. At present, the best way for our hard-working volunteers to meet is at the various congresses, but many of them do not have the funds for travel and registration costs, so we need to help them.
In the near future, in Asia, we have World and Regional Veg Congresses in Indonesia, China, India and Dubai.
We want to give our dedicated Asian volunteers more opportunities to meet each other, share experiences, agree strategies, and learn from eminent speakers about animals, health and the environment. Then they can return home inspired and motivated to continue their local work and their discussions on the internet.
Please donate what you can to help in this important work. More information is available at
http://www.ivu.org/asia-pacific/jashu-shah-fund.html
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INTERVIEW ON MEAT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Stephen Walsh, PhD, is author of ‘Plant Based Health and Nutrition’ and a contributor to ivu-science. We asked Stephen for his views on various controversies related to the role of meat production in global warming.
In 2006, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) published their Livestock's Long Shadow report which attributed 18% of human produced greenhouse gas emissions to livestock. The year, an article in Worldwatch magazine put the figure at 51% percent. How do you explain this difference between 18% and 51%? Which figure do you think is more accurate?
To read the full interview go to:
http://www.ivu.org/science/articles/climate_change.doc
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HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY TO VEGDINING.COM
Veg Dining - http://vegdining.com - is a website that helps us locate veg eateries and other veg-friendly establishments worldwide. Another such site is http://www.happycow.net
We can support these sites by telling our networks about them and by helping the sites keep up to date. For instance, if we visit an eatery not listed in the websites or notice that an eatery has changed its opening hours, we should send that information with the sites, so that they can better serve the growing community of people looking to eat veg.
IVU Online News did an email interview with VegDining’s founder, Dennis Bayomi.
To read the full interview go to:
http://www.ivu.org/news/magazine/article/internet/176/
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INTERVIEW WITH THE HEAD OF THE WINSOME CONSTANCE KINDNESS TRUST
About a year ago, a reader recommended that we interview Phil Wollen of the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust - www.kindnesstrust.com - because of the great work the Trust does for human and nonhuman animals in Australia and elsewhere. Read more about Phil at http://www.deccanchronicle.com/supplementary/sunday-chronicle/vegan-lifestyle-holds-key-spiritually-evolved-society-855 and http://veganeasy.org/Phil-Wollen
To read the full interview with Phil go to:
http://www.ivu.org/news/magazine/article/interviews/177/
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‘EARTHLINGS’ SPEAKS IN MANY LANGUAGES
The DVD ‘Earthlings’ - www.earthlings.com - has won praise for many activists for its broad coverage of the many not so happy interactions between humans and our fellow animals. Fortunately, the DVD is available with subtitles in 10 languages including: English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Italian and Hindi.
IVU would like to compile a list of videos, free and for sale, that are useful for promoting vegetarianism. This list will include the languages in which the video is available. Thanks.
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SERVING VEG FOOD TO NON-VEG CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
Editor’s Note: IVU Online News reader Mary Vincent - http://www.gratitudegourmet.com/contact.html - sent news of the Green Software Unconference she organised last August in Silicon Valley (USA). Veg food was served exclusively. Below, Mary explains how she did that.
I have been a vegetarian and vegan for 15 years since hearing a pig squeal while being killed. In 2008, I founded Gratitude Gourmet - http://www.gratitudegourmet.com/blog.html - which features veg food and policy news.
This year, I organised the Green Software event to bring software and business professionals together to work on software applications to reduce climate emissions. In addition to ensuring I had fabulous attendees at the event, I wanted to walk the talk by bringing in other concepts to help reduce emissions. Thus, I wanted only veg food at this event. I advertised to the attendees in advance there would be a sustainable lunch served. I also ensured that a tree was planted for every attendee to help offset their transportation costs and that there would be no plastic bottles.
During the lunch, I took the microphone and told the attendees we were having a veg lunch to help reduce carbon emissions since meat causes more emissions than transportation according to the United Nations Climate Change Report: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html
No one complained either during the conference or during the post-survey. The lunch was delicious, which I believe helped. During the lunch, I heard a conference attendee ask, "Do you have vegetarian?” The answer from the person serving them was, “It's all vegetarian!"
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THREE LITTLE PIGS REVISITED
Here’s an update on pig cognition. It’s nothing to turn up your snout at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html?_r=2&em
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DATABASE ON ANIMAL FREE AGRICULTURE - 1700+ REFERENCES
Editor’s Note: Thanks to Patricia Tricker of the Vegan Society for this news item.
The Vegan-Organic Network, in collaboration with Vegatopia, have compiled a new database of over 1700 scholarly references related to the science, practice and benefits of animal free agriculture:
http://www.vegatopia.org/bibliography.html
For notes explaining the database fields and the abbreviations used, see http://www.vegatopia.org/pdfs/dave%20of%20darlington%20database%20notes.pdf
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ANOTHER CLIMATE EXPERT SAYS ‘MINUS MEAT’
From the UK newspaper, The Telegraph: Lord Stern, author of the 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, predicts that eating meat could in the future become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6442164/Lord-Stern-People-should-give-up-eating-meat-to-halt-climate-change.html
Here are some rebuttals to the view that we should go veg to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/30/vegetarianism-climate-change-meat-stern
Plus, after years of being queried by vegetarian activists, Nobel Prize winning Global Warming campaigner Al Gore has come out to advocate meat reduction: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/11/05/2733587.htm
In an interview with ABC News, when asked if he agreed with British climate expert Lord Nicholas Stern’s call for people to be vegetarian to reduce emissions, Mr. Gore replied, “It’s a legitimate point of view. Nick Stern is a very able advocate for whom I have enormous respect… I have cut back sharply on the meat that I eat and it’s absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis. Not only because of the CO2 involved, but also because of the water consumed in the process.”
The former vice president went on to say, “You can add in the health consequences as well. We’ve all heard from our doctors for many years that vegetables and fruits should occupy a bigger part of all of our diets, and that’s important for a lot of reasons. I’ve made those changes.”
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WORTH-A-LOOK BOOKS
Here’s a review of ‘Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs And Wear Cows’ by Melanie Joy, PhD:
http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/why-we-love-dogs-eat-pigs-and-wear-cows-book-review.html
An excerpt from the review:
"Carnism" is the belief system that says it's okay to eat certain animals and not others. Like feminism, racism, ageism and speciesism, carnism has been inflicting harm for centuries. And because it was invisible and unnamed, it was challenging, if not impossible, to confront it and and to argue against it.. Now that carnism has been identified, explored, and brilliantly analyzed, it will become a powerful tool in changing the ubiquitous and dangerous misconceptions about eating meat.
The opening chapter of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows is startling and effective. We are asked to imagine a dinner party at which the guests are enjoying a delicious stew. But when one guest asks for the recipe the host explains that it starts with a golden retriever. The disgust and revulsion that follows this announcement is examined in detail later in the book, and Dr. Joy is both succinct and smart in showing us the overlapping circles of identification, empathy and disgust that color our relationships with animals.
The publisher created a promotional video with a reenactment of this scene: http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/why-we-love-dogs-eat-pigs-and-wear-cows-book-review.html
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THE BEEF WITH BURGERS
Jonathan Safran Foer, author of ‘Eating Animals’, and T. Colin Campbell, professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and author of the best selling ‘China Study’, were among the guests on an episode of the CNN show ‘Larry King Live’. The topic was whether people should stop eating burgers.
The show is worth watching to see a very broad range of views, including someone from the meat industry and a Nutrition professor who admits that veg is possible but claims being veg is more difficult and that there’s nothing nutritionally wrong with meat. This professor has received many hundred of thousands of dollars in research grants from the meat, egg and dairy industries: http://www.cag.uconn.edu/nutsci/nutsci/hpg/nrr.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/13/lkl.meat.infection/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0910/12/lkl.01.html
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NEW MEMBER SOCIETY
Middle East Veg Group (MEVEG), Dubai - Sandhya Prakash - http://www.meveg.info
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UPCOMING EVENTS
To view a listing of international upcoming events online, visit http://www.ivu.org/diary
1. Congreso Internacional Crudivegano En Bolivia (International Raw Vegan Congress) - 4-7 Jan, 2010, La Paz, Bolivia.
The Congress will be held in a rainforest location approximately two hours drive from La Paz. For more information: http://encuentrocrudo2010.blogspot.com (in Spanish) or contact Victor Maceda at .
4. South & West Asia Regional Vegetarian Congress - 13-14 Aug, 2010 (dates to be confirmed) - Bangalore, India
5. First MidEast Veg Congress - 28-30 Sep, 2010 (dates to be confirmed), Dubai, UAE
6. IVU World Vegetarian Congress - 1-9 Oct, 2010, Jakarta and Bali http://www.ivu.org/congress/2010/index.html
The 39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress will be held in Indonesia in two places, Jakarta, the capital (and the economic centre of the country) and Bali, the country’s most famous tourist destination. An outline of the programme is available at the congress website.
7. 13th International Vegan Festival - 2011 (exact dates to be announced) - Turin, Italy
8. 5th Asian Vegetarian Congress - Oct, 2011, Hangzhou, China
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WELCOME TO ORGANISATIONS THAT HAVE RECENTLY REGISTERED WITH IVU
ITALY
BioBistrot - http://www.biobistrot.it
Casa Della Pace - retreat centre - http://www.casadellapace.org
NEW ZEALAND
Vegan Society of Aotearoa New Zealand - http://www.vegansociety.co.nz
SINGAPORE
ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society) - http://www.acres.org.sg
UK
Early Vegetarian Recipes - http://www.earlyvegetarianrecipes.co.uk
USA
Pensacola Vegetarian Society - http://www.pensacolavegetariansociety.com
Shoals Vegetarian Fellowship, Alabama - http://www.shoalsveg.com
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OTHER ONLINE SOURCES OF VEG NEWS
In addition to IVU Online News, there are many other places to go online for general veg-related news, rather than news mostly about one country or one organisation. Here are some.
1. Dawn Watch
http://www.dawnwatch.com/alerts.htm
2. European Vegetarian Union
http://www.euroveg.eu/lang/en/news/newsletter.php
3. Farmed Animal Net
http://www.farmedanimal.net
4. Vegan Outreach
http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter
5. VegE-News
http://www.vege-news.com
6. AnimalConcerns.org doesn't have a newsletter, but they post stories daily at http://www.animalconcerns.org/categories.html?do=shownews
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PLEASE SEND NEWS TO IVU ONLINE NEWS
Dear Veg Activist
Please use this newsletter as a way to share your knowledge, ideas and experiences with fellow veg activists.
Thx. -–george jacobs -