5 The Case of Taiwan’s Animal Protection Movement
5.3 Animal Welfare Indicators
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addition to the given budget constraints, the overall challenges to put this system in place are extensive. As a result, based on the brief discussion on this issue at Taipei City Government Consultation Meeting in December, 2016, there is still a long way before this plan can become a reality. In the meantime, public education, the formulation of better welfare guidelines, and their effective communication to all stakeholders becomes imperative as the best next step to coordinate the overall animal management apparatus (Appendix: D1).
5.3 Animal Welfare Indicators
Considering the developments discussed so far, a common denominator across all aspect of policy discussion is the urgent need to address education. However, beyond increasing efforts in the sole area of social education, this actually entails a major project to inform all involved parties at the various levels of animal governance. This is because, as previously noted, the idea of animal welfare, and even more so, that of animal rights, is relatively recent. As a result, there is still important knowledge and practice gaps as to what defines effective animal protection.
Certainly, the APM has led on this front since its first mobilization campaigns incorporating the arguments advanced in modern animal ethics. The results of this process of communicative action and their juridification as policy imperatives under the political system are illustrated in the many policy approaches that have been discusses throughout this thesis, from the first enactment of the Animal Protection Law to the household-pet registration scheme. Nevertheless, the central task of translating and further embedding the normative ideas surrounding animal protection into working concepts within the governance process remain. At this juncture, animal advocacy actors who are engaged at the consultative level of government play a pivotal role by introducing animal protection discourses into the governance process and educating stakeholders. As EAST Director (Appendix: B1) elaborates:
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“I think at the very beginning they [the government officials] might have mixed the idea of animal rights and animal welfare. But right now, I think they do understand that they are different. They are trying to distinguish these two ethical ideas right now. Even the scholars, for example this morning we had a meeting with the government, and the academics, the jurists said: Ok we should have an ‘Animal Welfare Act’. I think that the concept of animal welfare is becoming more familiar with academics and government officials, but I don’t think they will say it’s animal rights.”
The successful work of animal advocacy actors on this level is further demonstrated by an important effort that is currently underway. This refers to the development of Animal Welfare Indicators and their formulation into a Government Whitepaper (Appendix: B1, B3). According to Chapter 2, Article 4.1 of the current Animal Protection Act:
“The central competent authority shall form a panel of experts, scholars, officials from relevant agencies and representatives from legitimate animal welfare civic groups to develop animal protection policies, as well as indicators and white paper for animal welfare, also to review the policy outcome every three months.”
The introduction of the two latter items is of considerable significance. This is because while as a member of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) Taiwan currently does recognize international animal welfare principles, adherence is tacit and at its best remedial (OIE, 2007; Appendix: B2). More specifically, these principles refer to the right to welfare of animals contained in the so called “5 Freedoms”:
【1】freedom from hunger, malnutrition and thirst;
【2】freedom from fear and distress;
【3】freedom from physical and thermal discomfort;
【4】freedom from pain, injury and disease; and
【5】freedom to express normal patterns of behavior (OIE, 2017).
Nevertheless, as TAEA representative argues, the application of these freedoms usually is relegated to when violations of welfare have already taken place and animals have been hurt (Appendix: B2). Therefore, mechanisms to prevent the violation of these principles rather than punishing offenders should be a priority. The development of indicators along these lines could
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help fostering better practices from stakeholders such as animal keepers, industry actors, and government officials.
On the other hand, they could also help in addressing important gaps in the law. This is because in spite of amendments, the Animal Protection Act remains ‘pet-centric’, protecting animals that have an ‘owner’. Similarly, the Wildlife Conservation Act “only really protects endangered species, therefore wild animals that are not endangered or have an owner fall in between the cracks and have no laws to really protect them from harm” (Appendix: B3).
Consequently, the benefits of developing clearly defined animal welfare indicators and the publication of a government whitepaper is a first step toward establishing a baseline onto which further animal welfare mechanisms can be built upon. More significantly, the expansion of these standards to more species of animals, and the possibility of enacting a more encompassing Animal Welfare Law in the future (Appendix: B1, B3).
Undoubtedly, the APM and key actors within the movement such as EAST and the TSPCA perform a crucial role, engaging in government consultation, and ensuring the better integration of animal welfare and animal rights discourses into the public agenda. Similarly, ongoing individual and collective mobilization is gradually transforming socio-natural relations toward a more eco-centric paradigm. Although the expansion of animal advocacy spaces of emancipation and resistance are subsequently subject to the process of colonization under the system, the above points discussed also lend to a contrasting observation. That is, that this process of juridification and commodification does not necessarily have to entail a negative outcome. As long as civil society actors are involved in the political process, the transformation of communicative action into policy imperatives can in effect help in the expansion of the democratic project, ensuring the representation of the increasing diversity of human and nonhuman interests. Furthermore, and in
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order to conclude, it can be argued that the cases touched upon throughout this thesis might suggest the possibility of an important retort to Habermas’s system-liferworld colonization argument. This is because as far as the system colonizes the lifeworld through the process of commodification and juridifcation, effective NSM actors can in effect strategically advance their process of communicative action into the system. Therefore, does the center expand into the fringes? Or do the fringes sip into the center?