Animal Welfare Bill: A promising start

After some 15 years of waiting, the long called-for Animal Welfare Bill has received Cabinet approval and will be presented in Parliament in due course. With Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Namal Rajapaksa also tweeting about the progression of the bill, there finally seems to be a fair amount of political will behind the push.

Animal Rights activists have understandably been buoyed by the development but know that this is but the beginning of Sri Lanka’s animal welfare journey. After all, a bill is one thing but actual implementation and the required education that needs to go with it for the bodies that will be entrusted with implementing it are very different matters.

It will be also interesting to see the different lobby groups that crop in the days, weeks and months ahead, either looking to halt the progression of the bill, or water it down.

Among the key aspects of the new bill, a considerable upgrade on the archaic Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance No. 13 of 1907 which presently governs animal welfare in the country, is that the penalties for transgressors are far more severe.

As things stand only a handful of acts fall under the defined category of cruelty while the definition of animal is limited to domestic or captured animals; the punishment for an infringement is a paltry Rs. 100 fine or a jail term no more than three months.

The absolute farcicality of the situation was highlighted when a dog named Charlie was burnt alive in 2019, and his owner was apprehended by Police but released on bail of just Rs. 5,000, with the current law not allowing for any further action. If the incident involving Charlie were to happen post the adoption of the new bill, the penalty could be as high as a Rs. 125,000 fine and four-year jail term.

But such deterrents are simply one way of halting animal cruelty; to truly improve animal welfare in the country, the wider public as well as those implementing the law must begin to view animals as fellow sentient beings – ones that feel fear and pain.

The new bill has a far wider definition of animal, which does not stop at merely domestic or captured animals. This is a start, and one that has wider repercussions for Sri Lanka’s milk and dairy industry.

The bill has therefore, expectedly, had push back from the meat and dairy industry – a lobby that was powerful enough to quash the recent bill seeking to ban cattle slaughter.

If the damage caused by the gung-ho attitude of the Government in pursuing a ban on chemical fertiliser has shown anything, it is that good intentions do not necessarily translate into good policymaking.

That said, there is a path here for the Government to make a genuine impact, not just on the country, but the region, if not the world.

The global meat and dairy lobby is one of the most powerful in the world, and it has done well to ingrain such commodities into the very fabric of society. But with focus growing more and more on sustainability and each individual’s footprint on the planet’s resources, it makes sense for all of us to cut down, if not completely forego, meat and dairy.

The numbers speak for themselves; recent studies have shown that meat accounts for nearly 60% of greenhouse gases from food production, while one kilogram of beef utilises some 15,000 tonnes of water. These are not numbers that can be sustained.

The Animal Welfare Bill is an excellent start, but it needs a concerted effort of education and cultural change to truly make a difference. The Government can give the necessary push, but it is wider society that must be ready to make the lasting change.