We welcome the Chinese government's policy on the various other nonprofit organizations that they support, and I think this is all a very positive development on the ground… [But] to reduce meat consumption is probably one of the hardest issues… The challenge we are facing today is that most of the Chinese majority don't understand animal welfare issues or rights issues.

- Pei Su

ACTAsia is a humane education nonprofit based in China. But which intervention types are most tractable in the Chinese context? And what can other advocates do to assist the work there?

After interning for several animal advocacy organizations and working for World Animal Protection, Pei Su co-founded ACTAsia, where she is now Executive Director.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• ACTAsia's role in China (2:12)
• ACTAsia's Caring For Life program (10:27) 
• The tractability of legislative and institutional change to benefit animals in China (18:13)
• Opportunities and responsibilities arising from new technologies like improved artificial intelligence (27:00)
• How animal advocates can ensure that they interact positively with the cultural and legal context in China (31:38)
• The quality of the candidates for leadership roles in animal advocacy organizations in China (37:00)
• Funding constraints and fundraising difficulties for ACTAsia (46:30)
• How talented individuals in the West can best help ACTAsia and Chinese animal advocacy organizations (52:05)
• How Chinese animal advocates can build experience (55:53)
• The use of for-profit experience compared to animal advocacy experience (1:00:02)
• ACTAsia’s expansion and interaction with advocates in other Asian countries (1:02:54)

Resources discussed in the episode:

Resources by or about ACTAsia:

• Caring for Life's page on ACTAsia's website
• Changing China Report
• ACTAsia's work training professionals
• Unbound Project’s post about Pei Su’s personal story
• Pei Su’s webinar on concepts and lessons on humane education

SI’s resources:

• Foundational questions summaries

Other resources:

• UN statistics on China’s farmed animal population (via OPP)
• The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture publicly acknowledging the concept of farmed animal welfare
• The recommendations of the Chinese Nutrition Society
• Students for High Impact Charity and “High School EA Outreach” 
• Animal Charity Evaluators’ report on the allocation of resources in the farmed animal movement
• 80,000 Hours on China specialists
• The 2016 Chinese charity law

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I see the pledge program a lot as a means to an end to get institutional change to happen… We're spending about 40% of our staff time and resources on corporate engagement and institutional change. While the marketing side of things is also there to sort of make the corporate side happen… [Veganuary’s place in the movement is] using the idea of the pledge program and driving a corporate change with it.

- Ria Rehberg

Veganuary focuses primarily on its online vegan pledge program. But how can this online commitment be harnessed to encourage wider societal change? Can this strategy play a role in bringing change in neglected areas and underrepresented demographics?

Ria Rehberg became executive director of Veganuary in 2019, having previously worked in leadership roles for Animal Equality and the Million Dollar Vegan campaign.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• How Veganuary’s pledge program fits into the wider movement to drive behavior change (1:54)
• The numbers and research behind Veganuary’s claims to have caused a reduction of more than 1.2 million kilograms of animal products purchased between January and June 2019 (7:15)
• Variations in marketing that affect the cost-effectiveness of Veganuary’s online pledge program (15:05)
• How Veganuary encourages companies to improve their provision of animal-free foods and decrease their provision of conventional animal products (16:36)
• How Veganuary works with other animal advocacy organizations (24:39)
• The extent to which nonprofits should specialize in a single intervention and how Veganuary’s pledge program relates to their corporate outreach work (28:24)
• Whether the farmed animal movement should prioritize tactics focused on influencing institutions or individuals (31:13)
• Whether the farmed animal movement should emphasize reducetarianism or veganism (36:42)
• The importance of marketing experience for Veganuary’s employees (40:59)
• Marketing experience, the relative use of for-profit and nonprofit career experience, and how to develop expertise without experience (42:10)
• Developing leadership skills (45:53)
• Funding constraints and how these issues compare to other bottlenecks on Veganuary’s impact (1:01:18)
• Veganuary’s work outside the UK, prioritizing between different locations to expand into, and the challenges of its expansion into different countries (1:19:52)
• Short-term cost-efficiency vs. diversity in outreach and social marketing (1:38:26)

Resources discussed in the episode:

Resources by or about Veganuary:

• Veganuary’s impact assessment for the 2019 pledge program
• Market research suggesting 10 times as many people taking part in Veganuary as signing up through the website
• Kantar research conducted with Veganuary (forthcoming)
• Veganuary’s business toolkit (available upon request)
• “#Veganuary: UK overtakes Germany as world’s leader for vegan food launches”
• Vegan Cycle India

SI’s resources:

• Foundational questions summaries
• Lessons for Consumer Behavior Interventions from the Health Behavior Interventions Literature (forthcoming)

Other resources:

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I think within five years, we will absolutely see… the first nonhuman animals recognized as holders of rights in the US; ‘persons’... [I don’t think] the gates [would be] flung open if we start to see one or two species recognized as having rights… I don’t see this at all as a linear path. We file the cases that we do and the work that we do and hope to achieve discrete outcomes, but we’re also very mindful of the fact that other judges [cite] us in cases that we don’t file… We’ve seen more and more judges citing our cases approvingly to say, ‘look, the relationship between humans and animals is changing; we need to take their interests more seriously’

- Kevin Schneider

The Nonhuman Rights Project has litigated in US courts for four chimpanzees and four elephants. But can litigation for a small number of animals drive a wider expansion of the moral circle? What are the risks of this approach? How can animal advocates maximize the chances of positive impact for animals while pursuing this strategy?

Since 2015, Kevin Schneider has been the executive director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, previously having worked in private legal practice.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• The NhRP’s plans for legislative campaigns (5:05)
• Whether litigation should focus on farmed animals or chimpanzees and elephants (13:28)
• How legal change interacts with public opinion and wider social change (29:00)
• The insights from forthcoming public polling supported by the NhRP on rights for particular species, and the implications of this (37:28)
• The decisions made by the NhRP in selecting particular states and legal strategies to focus on (46:49)
• How litigating for legal personhood for animals compares to enforcing and expanding the scope of existing legal protections for animals (1:00:30)
• What the NhRP has learned from its study of historical social movements and the risks of using this sort of evidence (1:08:03)
• The NhRP’s priorities for media coverage (1:13:08)
• How the NhRP interacts with advocates in other countries (1:32:08)
• Why the NhRP is not greatly constrained by either funding or by a lack of talented applicants to their job roles (1:42:33)
• How current legal professionals might (or might not) be able to help the NhRP (1:47:04)
• Why Kevin doesn’t believe that there is much scope for new organizations to do similar work to the NhRP elsewhere in the US (1:51:00)
• How someone could best prepare to be an excellent candidate for a role at the NhRP and how Kevin’s own career experiences have affected his work (1:59:12)
• Which professional legal experience might be most useful for animal advocates (2:04:40)

Resources discussed in the episode:

Resources by or about the NhRP:

• The NhRP’s article in the Syracuse Law Review on home rule
• Steven Wise of the NhRP’s book, Rattling the Cage
• The litigation cases of the NhRP
• Animal Charity Evaluators’ review of the NhRP
• Steven Wise of the NhRP’s book, Steven Wise, Though the Heavens May Fall, on the 1772 Somerset v. Stewart case
• The documentary on the NhRP’s work, Unlocking the Cage

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