WellBeing News Archive

Coral reef | Photo credit: whitcomberd, Adobe Stock

Jan 05, 2023 COP 15 – Can We Meet Biodiversity Goals & Targets?

Posted at 14:18h In Articles, Environment Well-being, Letter from the President, Public Awareness/Attitudes, Sustainability/Biodiversity, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil and Kathleen Rowan CEO, WellBeing International

IntroductionInitially scheduled to be held in Kunming, China, in 2020, the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP15) for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its additional protocols was postponed because of the COVID pandemic and rescheduled into two parts. The first part...

Book cover of "An Immense World" by Ed Yong

Jan 05, 2023 An Immense World by Ed Yong

Posted at 14:09h In Animal Sentience, Animals, Book Review, WellBeing News - By Steven Hansch and Leslie Barcus

Such an Array of Umwelts Ed Yong’s 2022 instant classic, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, delves into the senses of our animal cousins, including sight, sound, pain, smell, touch, vibrations, electric fields, and magnetic fields, and explains for the...

Urban Fox | Video credit: attapun_an | shutterstock

Dec 06, 2022 Living with Urban Foxes

Posted at 16:10h In Animal Well-being, Articles, Public Awareness/Attitudes, Sustainability/Biodiversity, WellBeing News, Wild Animals - By John Hadidian, PhD

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the most widely distributed wild carnivore on the planet, with a natural range that spans the entire Northern Hemisphere. Below the equator, foxes have been introduced to the Falkland Islands and Australia, where they cause widespread damage to domestic...

Fruits and vegetables in a market in India | Photo credit: saiko3p, AdobeStock

Dec 06, 2022 The Global Food System and Sustainability

Posted at 16:09h In Articles, Land Management, Public Awareness/Attitudes, Sustainability/Biodiversity, Well-being, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

In the last few years, several major reports have all called for changes in the world’s food system – usually emphasizing the need to shift to diets that emphasize plant-based nutrition – to ensure a sustainable future for the planet. These reports include:-2015 WHO...

Dec 06, 2022 The Well-Being Nexus

Posted at 16:00h In Animal Sentience, Animals, Letter from the President, Sustainability/Biodiversity, Well-being, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Progress following the Passage of the 2022 Animal Welfare, Environment and Sustainable Development Resolution at the UN Environment Assembly In March of this year (2022), the UN Environment Assembly passed a Resolution (EA.5/Res.1) that requested the Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi,...

Geese flying | Photo credit: tntemerson | iStock

Nov 10, 2022 The Nexus Between Animal Welfare, Environment, and Sustainable Development

Posted at 18:25h In Animal Sentience, Animals, Articles, Environment Well-being, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Sustainability/Biodiversity, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

The Nexus between Animal Welfare, the Environment, and Sustainable Development was the focus of a Resolution (sponsored by six African states and Pakistan) passed by consensus at the Fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) in March of 2022. The Resolution requested the United Nations Environment...

Lab mouse | Photo credit: fotografixx, iStock

Nov 10, 2022 Slowly but Steadily, Animals are being Replaced in Safety Testing

Posted at 18:21h In Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Laboratory Animals, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Periodically, WellBeing News (WBN) carries a story on using animals to test the safety of chemicals (see May 2021 and December 2021). Advocacy campaigns to switch from animal tests to non-animal alternatives started over a hundred years ago. Public policy initiatives and technological advances leading...

Hot summer in the city | Photo credit: Tomwang112, iStock

Nov 10, 2022 COP27 – Can We Move Forward?

Posted at 16:44h In Environment Well-being, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Letter from the President, Sustainability/Biodiversity, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil and Kathleen Rowan CEO, WellBeing International

Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) opened in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 6 and runs through the 18th. World leaders, climate campaigners, and climate stakeholders are gathered amid challenging world economic dynamics,...

Oct 03, 2022 Advocacy & Funding for Farmed Animal Welfare

Posted at 12:14h In Animal Sentience, Animal Well-being, Articles, Farm Animals, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Campaigns focusing on farmed animal welfare are relatively recent events of global animal advocacy, even though the UK animal protection movement is frequently identified as being launched when Richard Martin introduced his Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act in 1822. However, farmed animal advocacy only began...

Oct 03, 2022 Measuring Well-Being

Posted at 12:07h In Articles, Human Well-being, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

WellBeing News has published articles on the challenges of measuring human well-being and reported on the growing number of organizations involved in such efforts. One recently established organization is the Happier Lives Institute, founded in 2019 and based in Oxford (UK), to explore the most...