WellBeing News Archives

Octopus vulgaris | Photo credit: TheSp4N1SH

May 02, 2022 UK Passes Its Own Animal Sentience Act After Leaving the EU

Posted at 16:34h In Animal Sentience, Animal Well-being, Animals, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Letter from the President, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

When the UK (United Kingdom) voted to leave the European Union (EU), one of the consequences would be the loss of legislation on various issues covered in existing EU laws. The UK government had to pass new laws covering the many items in EU legislation...

May 02, 2022 Land Use & Food Supply

Posted at 16:22h In Articles, Environment Well-being, Farm Animals, Land Management, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Intensive animal agriculture provides increasing amounts of milk and meat (and fish) for human consumption. However, it also consumes many planetary resources and contributes to climate change. Given current trends, it seems almost impossible that we would change our eating habits to reach a point...

Cover of the 2022 World Happiness Report

Mar 31, 2022 World Happiness Report 2022

Posted at 14:17h In Articles, Human Well-being, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

The first World Happiness Report (WHR) was issued in 2012. Therefore, this year (2022) is the tenth anniversary of that event. The WHR founders’ statements in the opening chapter of WHR 2022 assert; 1. The true measure of progress is the happiness of people. 2....

Mar 31, 2022 Living with Lions

Posted at 14:12h In Animal Well-being, Articles, Letter from the President, WellBeing News, Wild Animals - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Lions face many challenges in the modern world. We have written about lion breeding and conservation and lion trophy hunting in previous WellBeing News posts. But lions also suffer the consequences of human-wildlife conflict, and many are poisoned or killed by exasperated livestock owners when...

Mar 31, 2022 Tourism in the Arctic: A Catalyst for Good or Bad?

Posted at 02:00h In Sustainability/Biodiversity, Well-being, WellBeing News - By Laura Gosse

The Arctic, a region extending from the North Pole into Canada, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, has experienced global warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. The likely cause of such higher temperatures?...

Mar 03, 2022 Plastic Pollution – Challenge for Life Below Water and Life on Land

Posted at 10:32h In Articles, Letter from the President, Oceans, Well-being, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil and Kathleen Rowan CEO, WellBeing International

[caption id="attachment_11965" align="alignright" width="300"] Endangered Hawksbill Sea Turtle caught in a discarded net[/caption] The Challenge The plastics revolution launched in the 1950s has led to the cumulative production of 8,300 million tonnes (MT) of plastic products and vast quantities of plastic pollution (6,300 MT). According to a...

Mar 02, 2022 Wolves Revisited

Posted at 17:44h In Animal Well-being, Articles, WellBeing News, Wild Animals - By Andrew Rowan

In the January 2022 WellBeing News, we wrote about the proposed wolf hunt in Norway. We mentioned that there had been a court injunction barring the Norwegian Government from issuing permits to shoot 51 of the estimated 80 wolves in the country – an estimated...

Homeless dogs | Photo credit: Blue Cross of India

Mar 02, 2022 Humane Management of Global Dogs

Posted at 17:42h In Animal Well-being, Articles, Companion Animals, Global Dog Campaign, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan

In 2000, international animal protection organizations were spending around $110 million annually on global animal protection, with perhaps 10-20% of that total going to dog projects. By 2020, these groups were spending around $400 million globally on animal protection, with approximately $50 million spent on...

Jan 31, 2022 Protecting the Oceans: Tristan Case Study

Posted at 12:32h In Articles, Environment Well-being, Oceans, WellBeing News, Wild Animals - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

The Tristan da Cunha archipelago, a small group of volcanic islands in the middle of the South Atlantic, is characterized by the surrounding, largely undisturbed, temperate marine ecosystem. The largest island, Tristan, at 98 km2, has a population of approximately 260 permanent inhabitants and is...

Jan 31, 2022 Social Progress Index

Posted at 12:26h In Articles, Human Well-being, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

WellBeing News has carried several stories about global happiness (e.g., World Happiness Report), subjective well-being, and happiness research centers. Happiness (and subjective well-being) research is booming, but these are not the only ways to measure global well-being. The Social Progress Imperative is a US-based non-profit...

WellBeing News Archive