How I Learned to Love Shrimp

Mahi Klosterhalfen on progressive strategies for animals in Germany and the importance of sharing mistakes

• Amy Odene & James Ozden

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Mahi Klosterhalfen from Albert Schweitzer Foundation brings us exciting progress for animals in Germany. Mahi walks us through his work on cage-free, broilers and also now fish and shrimps and why Germany seems to be one of very few countries where meat consumption per capita is declining. 

We also dive into some thought provoking questions around running an organisation and why as a movement leader, sharing of mistakes is so important. Super interesting chat from a really knowledgeable long-term member of this space - well worth a listen. 

Relevant links to things mentioned throughout the show:

00:00:00:00 | Intro
00:08:09:13 | Progress with retailers and producers
00:17:47:13 | Lower welfare fresh meat by 2030.
00:24:42:09 | Results of legal actions by the Foundation
00:42:26:01 | Meat tax that might finance animal welfare improvements
00:50:05:11 | Public opinion of animal welfare in Germany
00:57:47:11 | Future plans and campaigns
00:59:07:17 | Mistakes that Leaders make
01:11:17:02 | How to be a better Leader?
01:16:26:02 | Closing questions

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Mahi: I used to be somewhat concerned about the welfare washing part. Actually, Josh Balk convinced me that it's not as relevant as I thought. And his main argument is meat will always be, there will always be welfare claims on meat. And that's exactly right. When you look at the level two low welfare meat in Germany, it actually says on the package initiative for animal welfare. And then there's a green check mark behind it. So consumer sees animal welfare. Green checkmark. 


Amy: Great!


Mahi: Awesome. Fantastic. Nothing to worry about. So this stuff is happening anyway. So whether or not retailers or anybody else increases their welfare standards, there will be communication about welfare. And I'd rather be that, like, about real welfare than about fake welfare. So I don't think we can stop the communication. And yeah, just make sure it's somewhat real. 


Amy: Hi, my name is Amy. 


James: And my name is James. 


Amy: And this is how I learn to love Shrimp, a podcast about promising ways to help animals and build the animal advocacy movement. 


Amy: Mahi Klosterhalfen from Albert Schweitzer foundation brings us exciting progress for animals in Germany. Mahi walks us through his work on cage free, broilers and also now fish and shrimps, and tells us why Germany seems to be one of the very few countries where meat consumption per capita is actually declining. We also dive into some thought provoking questions around running an organisation and why, as a movement leader, the sharing of mistakes is so important. Super interesting chat from a really knowledgeable long term member of this space. Well worth a listen. And while we've got you, a small ask from James and I coming up. Just shy of our 40th episode, we want to hear from you, our super valued listeners. 


Amy: What are you liking? What could be improved? How can we elevate this podcast to keep you engaged and listening long term? We have a short form for you to fill in which you can access in the show notes, on our website, on the Hive Slack, and on our LinkedIn. So if you're keen for us to continue, we need to hear from you. So please take two minutes to just share your thoughts. We'd really appreciate it. Now, onto this really insightful episode, here's Mahi. 


Amy: Hi everyone. Welcome to today's episode. We're joined by Mahi Klosterhalfen, who is the CEO of the Albert Schweitzer foundation. Under his leadership, every German retailer and over 100 food companies have ditched cage eggs, alongside achieving many other great things for animals. 


Amy: For all of this work, he was honored with the Peter Singer Prize for strategies to reduce the suffering of animals, and he received a spot on Vox's future perfect list. In his spare time, he uses meditation techniques to enter non dual states of mind, which he claims is helpful for his activism. Incredible. Welcome, Mahi. 


Mahi: Thank you for that kind introduction, Amy. Great to see you, James.


James: Likewise. Yeah, we're excited to talk and definitely want to talk about the final thing on your bio, which is non dual forms of consciousness. That'd be an interesting way. And how we can obstacle our activism. That'll be a new topic for the podcast. Maybe we can cover that as well. 


Mahi: Let's do that. Yeah, sure. Want to do that now? 


James: No, no, no. But we should do that at the end. It'll be funny. The first thing, I really enjoyed your talk at Ava with Kirsty Henderson from Anima International about the mistakes you guys have made as leaders or the things on how not to run an effective organization. So I guess I would love to hear more in this vein, what's the mistake you've made recently, and anything we can learn from that or you can share for other people. 


Mahi: Yeah, happy to. A great way to start a podcast, by the way. Jump into the painful stuff. If you want to make it even more painful, someone at Anima International actually asked me, how many lives did your biggest mistake cost? So.


James: Wow, that's brutal. 


Mahi: That's typical Anima International style. They like the painful questions.


Amy: Was this in a Q and A, like a live Q and A? 


Mahi: No, they just will ask you that privately when you talk to them for too much time. 


Amy: Just casual. I was gonna say, I always dread, like, Q and A's anyway, because you never know what's gonna come up. And that is. Yeah, wow. Big question. 


Mahi: So I would say definitely not thinking outside the box enough recently, especially on the broiler work we're doing. So, as you may know, the broiler work in Europe as well as in US, has slowed down quite a bit. And I think in Germany, we made a big mistake sticking to the ECC criteria, just going by the book, even though we have a very widespread welfare label that all the major retailers use, that has a step that's very similar to ECC, but it's not exactly ECC. And for way too long, we've kind of been pounding on the differences and really getting into fights with the retailers about how they need to change some criteria. And this has really slowed us down. And I think that was a mistake. 


Mahi: And now we are fixing that and saying, okay, we can be a little bit more flexible, the welfare outcomes will basically be the same, so why not be a little bit more flexible and just get things rolling? 


Amy: What do you think was holding you back from changing that tactic earlier in the process of doing broiler work? 


Mahi: I think it was pretty new for us to be in this coalition. So there are 30 groups behind the ECC, the European Chicken Commitment, and it took a while to agree on all the criteria and kind of, we all agreed on this. Right? So I never asked myself, are there different ways of approaching this? Can we make this more smoother? Yeah, I think it took me way too long to kind of shift gears and then start a discussion with the other groups whether it would be okay to do this. And, yeah, I think we wasted quite some time and coming back to, like, the dreadful question, I do think we could have avoided some animal suffering if we had moved faster in that regard. 


James: And by. In this case, when you say move fast, do you mean kind of had more flexibility? Because I know in the UK, some of the retailers are committing to the stocking density part of, in this case, the BCC rather than the breed. Is that something that you wish you had done sooner, or what do you mean by the flexibility of the changes? 


Mahi: Yeah, it's even less dramatic than what's happening in the UK, for instance. So the German label, it has four levels, and level three has most of what we want for broilers as a minimum standard. They don't have some criteria like light. They don't have the 50 lux that we're asking for on the European chicken commitment, but on the other hand, they have winter gardens or other ways that the chickens can experience outside climate. So it kind of evens each other out a little bit. And it's just saying, okay, we can trade the 50 lux worth of winter garden, for instance, and we were not ready to do that, and now we are. And I think it's exactly the right thing to do. 


Amy: Yeah, it's so interesting. I feel like we could talk a lot just on this topic in particular, because I think coalitions are great and super helpful to a point. But then actually, potentially, if it becomes, like, a little restrictive or maybe there is a country specific amendment that you could make, but you don't want to go against the coalition because then you're the ones who are deflecting from the agreed position. Yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits, kind of pros and cons for the coalition work that our movement tends to favour. You've obviously highlighted a challenge there sometimes that they present.


Mahi: Yeah, absolutely. 


Amy: As we said in the bio, German retailers seem to be making some really amazing progress, and it's something that I've definitely admired from, I was going to say afar, but thinking globally, Germany's not super far away. 


Amy: So, yeah, definitely excellent work in the retail sector so far. Can you talk about some of the achievements or the progress that you're making with retailers and why you think things are going so well in Germany as opposed to perhaps other countries? 


Mahi: Yeah, I'll start with the progress we've been making. So you mentioned we got rid of battery cages, and also the retailers aren't using cage eggs in their own brand products anymore. We moved on to end beak trimming, or beak searing, as some people call it. Laying hens get the tip of their beaks cut off because they're so stressed in the environments, they start pecking at each other. Interestingly, as the agriculture industry tends to do, they adjust the animal and not the circumstances. So we worked on that topic and we figured out what needs to be done to properly end beak trimming. And we talked to the retailers about this and they helped us to make that happen as well. So it's not being practiced anymore in Germany. 


Amy: And just to clarify for people who might not know why that's such a challenge. So is that often done without anaesthetic? And then there's sometimes health complications following that because it's sometimes not very accurate or because it's affecting the face. What are the challenges that the birds are facing from beak trimming? 


Mahi: Yeah, so the procedure itself is extremely painful. Laying hen uses its beak or her beak. It's basically like our finger. They can feel a lot with their beaks, and it's kind of the main tool to kind of explore the environment. So cutting part of that off must be extremely painful, and it's being done without anaesthetics. And then also there's pain that just doesn't seem to go away through their entire lifetime because of that. So, yeah, it's quite the problem, and I'm glad we fixed it to some degree. 


James: You said you work with the retailers on making this happen. I guess, was some of this ensuring the conditions were good enough for the layer hens, such that they wouldn't actually be doing this feather pecking to each other, and such that the beak trimming, therefore, wasn't necessary. 


Mahi: Austria was a little faster in ending this practice. So I travelled to Austria and visited farms, talked to a professor of veterinary medicine who was very much involved in this process in Austria, and he explained to me all the different factors that go into this. So the overall goal is to make sure the laying hands are less stressed. And there are many ways to do this or many ways you have to do this. One is the feed quality. So laying hens tend not to get enough protein. So you got to make sure that the feed quality is all right. And if the protein is too low, that stresses them, can be air quality, it can be light, can be noise in the barn, can be like 20 different factors. 


Mahi: So we actually started to work with a certification system that is very widespread in Germany. All the retailers use it. It's called KAT. And they have their own rules that go beyond what the animal welfare law mandates. And so we made sure that the end of beak trimming is implemented in this system. And the retailers have quite a lot of influence about what happens at KAT and what doesn't. So we were able to convince them to fight for this. And that worked out eventually. 


Amy: Great. 


Mahi: Yeah. So other progress we've been making in Germany is about aquaculture. So we started an initiative where we got all the retailers together, the industry together, and actually everyone agreed that they want to raise welfare standards for aquatic animals. And the retailers actually said they want 100% of their supply to be certified higher welfare aquaculture products. So this is something we're currently working on making happen. So right now there's not a lot of supply, but, yeah, we're helping to fix that as well. 


Amy: And what does that mean in Germany? What are they classing as aquaculture being high welfare? 


Mahi: We have a couple of general criteria that apply to basically all species. I think the most important one, interestingly, is water quality. Like the water for a fish is so much more important even than the air is for us, because, yeah, it's just more intense to be in water than on land. Then there's handling, slaughter, obviously. So stunning prior to slaughter, feed quality, things like that. And we have been working with certifiers, like other groups have been doing, ASC, for instance, or Global Gap. They have now come out with their own criteria also through working with us, that define what that means for each species. And that really depends on the species, what needs to be done to reduce suffering. We're taking steps towards actually decreasing the suffering of aquatic animals. And by the way, this does include shrimp. 


Mahi: So working on higher shrimp welfare as well. 


Amy: Awesome. 


James: Nice. 


Amy: It seems like a bit of a dream scenario that the actual producers would be coming to the table and asking for this. Is it because of the stricter laws on animal welfare in Germany that it makes sense. And they're trying to, like, challenge imports? Is it from a meat quality perspective? Like, what is it about the German system that is making or encouraging producers to actually come to the table and want this higher welfare for fish? 


Mahi: Yeah, I think the strongest argument for the producers is that their production costs are quite high anyway, especially labour is very expensive in Germany compared to many other countries. So they need a way to differentiate themselves from other producers and they are in a good place to make higher welfare happen. And they have really embraced this as an opportunity for them to basically make more money and stay in business. 


James: Yeah, I actually thought the change was coming from the retailers. I thought the retailers were the ones who wanted the higher welfare practices. So surely, like, yeah, is it coming from the producers or the retailers? 


Mahi: Yes. Amy said, dream scenario. So we got everyone on the table and the retailer said, we want this. And the producer said, well, it makes sense for us to do this. So it's kind of a non issue. It's not a debate anymore whether this should happen. Like, everybody is on board with this. Now it's kind of the question, what can we do? How fast can we do it and how can we make it happen? 


James: And what do you think is driving the low cost retailers? Like the Lidls and the Aldis. I guess generally in the UK, they've been the ones that have been slow to move because they want to be the budget retailer and there's fierce competition amongst retailers. And I'm wondering, how is it that they've all agreed and coalesced? Because obviously, if everyone agrees, it's great, but no one wants to make the first move. So I guess, how did that coordination happen? 


Mahi: Yeah, so I have a theory about why some retailers like Aldi are doing this, and it doesn't only seem to have to do with money. It was very interesting. We worked with Aldi on the European Chicken Commitment a couple of years ago together with other groups, and we did convince Aldi to join the ECC. And a couple of months later, they came back to us and said, well, we talked this through internally and we really thought it through and it sounded like the owner. So Aldi is privately held and not traded publicly, so they don't have to have each quarter - great financial results and stuff like that. There's some. Maybe the owners are somewhat convinced that things should change. And actually they came back to us saying, we think it doesn't make sense to only do this for broiler chickens. 


Mahi: We want to do it for all species, so nobody pushed them to do this. Nobody asked them even to do this. They just came up with this on their own. And as much as I'd like to kind of claim credit for it, I don't think I can. They just said, hey, we figured this out for ourselves and we're going to use the labelling scheme. We have the four tiers. We have, and we want to get rid of the two lowest tiers, so we want to get rid of tier one and two and move everything, especially for fresh meat. They're starting with fresh meat, move everything to higher welfare by 2030. It seems to me that obviously they want to market themselves as a sustainable and responsible company. That's probably part of it, too. 


Mahi: There's competition around that as well, not only on revenue and margins and all that, but there also seems to be a little bit more than that. That's really interesting. And probably since none of the big German retailers are publicly traded, this does seem to play a role. And I think that's really different from other countries, especially the US, where everybody seems to be on a stock market and seems to have to produce shareholder value. And that's kind of by creating or generating a lot of money. I think it's at least somewhat different in Germany. I wouldn't say totally different, but somewhat different. 


Amy: It's so funny to hear of a success like that hasn't come at the expense of, like, you know, campaigning. And I feel like we put so much effort in often that it's probably difficult for people to hear that, like, the industry just came forward and want this. Like, we can't. There's no tangible, like, how could I replicate that in my country, you know? So, yeah, it's obviously great news, but I feel like it's different from what we normally hear, right? We're normally fighting tooth and nail against the industry to come forward. 


Mahi: Yeah. 


Amy: Can you talk a little bit more about the lower welfare fresh meat by 2030 that you just referenced? 


Mahi: Yeah, as I said, four tiers is that labeling scheme. The retailers kind of invented that scheme on their own. We have been criticizing it because level one is basically the legal minimum or not basically, it's the legal minimum. So were criticizing, why even have a tier for that? And then level two was also basically legal minimum plus 10% space and kind of tiny enrichments on top of that. So we said, this doesn't make sense. Level two should be like a real step and not just 10% more space. In the beginning, I didn't really dare to dream that the retailers would be willing to get rid of tiers one and two, and not all of them are willing to do this yet, but we're working on it. 


Mahi: When Aldi announced that and came to us before they did and said, okay, this is going to happen, and I kind of realized, okay, maybe there's an opportunity here. And actually, I ended up having the cell phone number of the CEO of Edeka, which is another one of the big four players. So I called him and said, hey, Aldi is doing this. I think you should be doing it, too. And he was like, yeah, we just decided we'll do it, too. 


Amy: So just right now, just when you said, I've just thought and, yeah. 


Mahi: Let's put it that way. After I called, he said, no, I think they decided before I called. 


James: Wow. 


Mahi: So they're working on this as well. And the other two of the biggest four, kind of slowly. Lidl is one of the other big four. Lidl is putting out some statements in that vein that they want to also go in that direction. And then there's the slowest one, Edeka, which is the toughest to work with. But I guess once we get more traction with the other retailers, it will be easier and easier to get on board as well. To come back to my point that I couldn't imagine them doing this, I guess when the retailers invented the scheme, they also didn't imagine them doing this. And then Aldi moved forward, came along, and then all of a sudden it became a real possibility. And now it's one of our priorities to actually help make this happen. 


James: That is super cool. Yeah, I think that point of, once one starts moving, hopefully the rest will follow. And there's similar good news in the UK. Tesco, which is one of the biggest retailers, also committed to meeting the BCC standard for stocking density. So I guess there's hope in the UK now that hopefully the other ones will follow suit, which is very exciting. On the topic of the retailers as well. I guess this has all been animal welfare focused. I know also Lidl, or maybe probably I should be saying Lidl. I don't know how to pronounce it, in Germany. Also, they reduced the cost or reduced the price of their plant based products such that it was price parity with their animal product. Kind of like compare, like relative same things, basically. I guess, did you play a role in that? 


James: And do you think the signs of that happening with the other supermarkets in Germany, too? 


Mahi: Again, I wish I could claim credit, but I can’t. So I think what happened with Lidl, that's the way you would pronounce it in German, Lidl, Netherlands. They're almost in all european countries. And in the Netherlands, fantastic group called Vacadia has been putting pressure on retailers on meat, kind of the protein mix. They were pushing retailers to say, okay, what's your quota? Like, how many animal proteins do you have? How many plants proteins? What's the quota? And what are you planning on doing about this? And so I think the whole topic started in the Netherlands, and a couple of Dutch retailers now have commitments to reduce the share of animal proteins in their supply chain. And I'm pretty sure Lidl, Germany, talked to their Dutch colleagues and saw what's happening there, and decided they wanted to do something on that issue as well. 


Mahi: And I've heard from a couple of people in the industry that this also seems to be, at least to some degree, them just being convinced that's the right thing to do, especially for environmental reasons, and that's why they're doing it, and it's great. And the price parity thing has now been copied by a couple of other retailers, and that has really helped. So Lidl put out their own numbers, saying when they took that step, their sales of plant based meats and other alternatives increased by 30% right away, and they are pushing forward to keep increasing the share of plant proteins in their supply chain. 


Amy: I think that seems really integral to go alongside some of the other commitments that you've talked about. And I wonder, from a consumer perspective, especially going back to the higher welfare fresh meat or the retailers pledging to stop low welfare fresh meat. Do you think there's a challenge there, that this makes consumers still feel good about consuming meat products? And is that why it's important that this commitment would go hand in hand with lowering cost of plant based products at the same time? 


Mahi: Yeah, I think two sides to this. I fully agree that these two go very well hand in hand. You increase welfare standards, you increase the costs. Consumers probably want to buy less meat anyway. And when you then push the plant based products, that’s a great strategy. I used to be somewhat concerned about the welfare washing part. Actually, Josh Balk convinced me that it’s not as relevant as I thought. And his main argument is meat will always be, there will always be welfare claims on meat. And that's exactly right. When you look at the level two low welfare meat in Germany, it actually says on the package initiative for animal welfare, and then there's a green check mark behind it. So consumer sees animal welfare green check mark. Awesome. Fantastic. Nothing to worry about. So this stuff is happening anyway. 


Mahi: So whether or not retailers or anybody else increases their welfare standards. There will be communication about welfare, and I'd rather be that about real welfare than about fake welfare. So I don't think we can stop the communication and just make sure it's somewhat real. 


James: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think words like natural aren't actually controlled or fresh. And it's like, oh, you see natural? And you see this photo of this cow in a field, you're like, wow, it must be high welfare. And it's like, no, this is just total lies. Yeah, I agree that stuff is happening regardless of whether the backend is actually good or not. So, yeah, I think I agree with Josh's point. He's very wise, as we all know. And, yeah, we had a great conversation with him, which will obviously link. 


Mahi: Yeah, I enjoyed that a lot. Yeah, I encourage people to listen to that interview. It was great. 


James: So we've spoken about a few things that you haven't done as Albert Schweitzer foundation. So maybe we should talk about a few things that maybe you guys have played more of a role in, which is maybe some of the legal actions, I think you guys, I guess. Can you share some examples of some of the legal actions you guys have been taking and the results of some of this labour? 


Mahi: Yeah, why not start with one case where we weren't involved? 


Amy: So modest Mahi!


James: What are you guys actually doing? I'm so confused. 


Amy: The comms team are crying right now. 


Mahi: So you may have heard that Germany banned the killing of male chicks. And this happened because one federal state in Germany, North Rhine Westphalia, NRW, is the official short version. So the state of NRW had some breeding companies there, and they said, you can't kill male chicks anymore, and actually put out an order for them to stop doing it. And then the egg industry sued against this order. And so they went to court saying, well, we have always been doing it. We think it's totally fine. And actually, they did win, I think both of the first instances. And then the second instance even said, you can't go to the third and final instance. It's over. And then our board member, Hans Georg Kluge, took over the case. I don't think he was involved before that. 


Mahi: I'm not 100% sure. He wrote a complaint to the higher court or the highest court saying this was not okay, to not open the pathway to the last instance. And these complaints have a 6% success rate. And actually, he did succeed. And then the highest court said, well, let's look at the animal welfare law and article one, I'll just pull that up real quick on my screen and try to translate that here. It says nobody is allowed to cause animal harm, damage or suffering without reasonable grounds or reasonable cause. So court said, well, the killing of male chicks is being done for financial reasons only, and you can have huge debates about what's reasonable cause. But the court was very clear that just economic benefits is not a reasonable cause. So they shut the whole thing down. 


Mahi: They said it has to be outlawed right away. That's how the law came into place, and that has already been implemented now. So the male chicks are not killed anymore in Germany.


Amy: And what's the solution? What are they doing with the male chicks now? 


Mahi: Two different things. In the beginning, most of the chicks actually were raised for meat, and that was being done under horrible conditions. Many of them were shipped to Poland, where it's easy to raise in barns. It's not as easy to do that in Germany. So they were like, okay, we have a bunch of chicks, we don't know what to do with them, sent them to Poland. So you'd have transport first, and then you'd have fattening the chicks with no obligations about what to do about animal welfare. There was no rules on that, so it was definitely terrible. And then these chicks would usually, their meat wouldn't be as, again, quote unquote high quality as broiler meat. So most of that ended up being pet food.


Mahi: At the same time while this was happening, the innovosexing technology kept developing and the companies were able to get more of this machinery on the market. And over time it went from maybe just 10% in innovosexing to nowadays 75%, and that keeps on growing. So that's, I think, the better solution to make sure the male chicks don't even hatch. And then the eggs, as you might know, will then be used maybe also for animal feed. But at least the chicks don't have to go through this whole process of being transported and fattened and slaughtered. 


James: Maybe this is a niche comment, but something I learned about recently is the UK Animal welfare committee also did investigation into innovosexing, or chick culling, and one of their recommendations was actually, currently it's like 70% of these male chicks in the UK are actually used for pet food for exotic animals and snakes. So their actually worry was by actually getting rid of this, you're actually going to have more mice and rats, because the UK actually has so many snakes and exotic animals kept in zoos. So actually maybe cause more animal suffering overall, which is quite interesting. But I guess in Germany, I think we're a unique case in the UK and maybe also the US. But I guess. Do you know more about this? And I guess this wasn't a problem in Germany. 


Mahi: Yeah. So the argument was brought up by the egg industry. 


James: It's always dubious when they say something, you're like, hmmmm.


Amy: Is this true? 


Mahi: Exactly. So you have to take that with a grain of salt. I think the numbers were inflated. I don't have exact numbers. They claimed that zoos were buying all the gassed chicks. Yeah. I doubt that they had so many birds and so many zoos that the math would work out. But I think to some degree, there is that effect. And some people say maybe now more mice are being bred as kind of a substitute for male chicks. So, yeah, I don't know for sure. I definitely think this is something to be aware of. 


James: Yeah, maybe we'll link that Animal Welfare Committee report, but, yeah, this is something I need to speak to Robert Yaman about from Innovate Animal AG, whose main work is Innovosexing, trying to bring into the US. So I should release, or maybe we should bring him on and ask him these questions, because it'd be interesting. 


Mahi: I'm sure he has a lot of information about that. And just knowing Robert, he probably thought this through and he probably came to the conclusion that's not a big deal. So we kind of have our answer almost. 


James: Yeah. And maybe one question. So you said the law passed initially in NRW in one of the regions, but then did it then quickly become national, or how did that next step happen? 


Mahi: Yeah, it was not a law in NRW. NRW just said, we interpret the animal welfare law as this not being legal, and we've never said anything about it, but now we do. And after the highest court decided that it actually was illegal, then the German government came out with a law. So it covers all of Germany now. And this is kind of typical for the way legal cases work. You, at least in Germany, you always basically start with one case and then it becomes kind of a more broader ruling that applies to everyone else. And if you want to dive into something we were involved in, that's a lawsuit I can talk about for turkey welfare. 


Amy: Yeah, please, go for it. 


Mahi: Different federal states. Baden-Württemberg, it doesn't have a sweet short form. Ba-Wü some people say, so we are not allowed to start lawsuits in other federal states than Berlin itself. Berlin as a city and a state. And in Ba-Wü, there was a group that is based there and that has the right to sue. It wasn't only there, it still is there. And we collaborated with that group and they got hold of some undercover footage of turkey investigation. So the first step of the process is we tell the authorities who are responsible for making sure that the animal welfare laws are adhered to. We contacted them and said, we think the animal welfare law is being breached in that barn. Please do something about it. They came back to us saying, no, it's a perfectly fine barn. It's actually one of the best we have. 


Mahi: Everything's fantastic. Fantastic. So after they did that, only then were we allowed to ask the courts if they agree with that. And that's what we did. And again, we had to go through the first instance where I got a terrible ruling, basically saying, agreeing with the authorities, saying it was all fine. So we had to go to the second instance. This time we won, and we got a great court ruling saying, what's happening in turkey barns and turkey meat production is in violation of the animal welfare law. And this time they didn't use article one, but article two, I'll pull that up as well and try to translate. It says something like, whoever keeps an animal has to keep it according to its needs and have to feed it and take care of it and treat it in a way that's according to. Yeah, basically according to its needs. 


Mahi: So since we don't have any more specific rules on how to treat turkeys, they had to come back to this very general clause and see whether it fits or not and hey were extremely clear that what's happening is not in line with what I just tried to translate. Now, interestingly, again, the second instance said, you can't go to the third instance. So this time the turkey breeders are really pissed about that. They filed a complaint about it. And we also filed a complaint because the court didn't look at the breeding issues. So I like to use the term overbreeding, but not a lot of people know what I mean when I say that. 


Mahi: Overbreeding, in my mind is when you breed animal to an extent that they're basically suffering is in their genes, like with the broiler chickens, the fast growing broiler chickens, it's the same, or let's say even worse with turkeys. And they didn't cover that. Interestingly, we found actually there's EU regulation that's applicable here, and that's very clear on how you can, to what extent you can breed an animal. They just ignored that part of our 100 pages or whatever we sent to them. So we actually want to get an even better ruling in the third and last instance. So this is kind of now we're waiting for the decision whether actually we can go to the third instance or whether the third instance will say, no, second instance did fine. That's going to be what's applicable here, and even that kind of medium case. 


Mahi: So worst case is the factory farmers can turn this whole thing around, which I don't think they can. Best case is, we get something even better. But even the medium case would basically mean the end of the way turkeys are being produced right now in Germany, so.


James: It's amazing. 


Amy: It's great. I feel like there's quite a few countries where they're now looking into the laws. And like James was saying, that's happening in the UK now with broilers and looking into that legislation, that's saying that they must be kept. You know, there's a lot of terms in there, again, as we were saying, about natural and what they need to, you know, not just survive sometimes, but thrive. I think this angle of looking into those existing laws to see if actually animals have been bred to the extent where suffering is just in their genes because we've taken it too far, is a really interesting strategy. Is that relatively new to Albert Schweitzer foundation? And is that one of your main focuses now, to really try and push those laws further? 


Mahi: Yeah, we have been doing that. I'd say maybe not enough, but actually, our founder, who sadly passed away about ten years ago, actually, before he launched Albert Schweitzer foundation, he also was a lawyer. He convinced the German constitutional court that battery cages are not in line with the animal welfare law and the constitution. So that's how we ended up moving towards a cage ban in Germany. And so it's always been ingrained in our DNA, I would say. And we are also now looking more intensely at what other species can we get things done for. We started a couple of lawsuits again in NRW for pigs, for instance. Unfortunately, there was a governmental change, and the new conservative government said, we don't like the fact that animal orgs can sue, so we're going to take that away from them. 


James: No way. 


Mahi: Now, we are uh. Unfortunately, that stuff happens. Now we're fighting with the courts about whether or not the cases that had been started already can also be finished. And we argue you can take the right away from us for new cases. But if there's an ongoing case, the kind of legal action you took or the law change you made does not imply that all cases stop in their tracks. 


Amy: Yeah


Mahi: Actually we argue that they must be able to be finished. So this will be decided. We'll see. Maybe we get some good court rulings for pigs in the future. Also the constitutional court, again, that's, again, another route that's been taken is looking at pig welfare now. So maybe we get something from them as well. 


Mahi: You know, we've been really fighting hard for better EU legislation and kind of got very disappointed with where things went. But our lawyer tells me what he finds in EU law and that's applicable in Germany and probably in many other countries. He can get a lot of shit done with that. So he actually doesn't need better EU laws. He just needs to start lawsuits and tell the courts, hey, this EU law is being ignored. You got to do something about it. And luckily the courts especially, like in the higher instances, they don't really care that much about what that actually means for production. They just very openly look at this and say, okay, the law says this, the law says a, but they're doing b. That's not okay and it needs to stop. So I'm really optimistic about additional legal action. 


James: It feels like you've already had reasonable success and seems like we'll hopefully have more on the legal avenue. But it seems like the laws you guys have aren't like remarkably ten years ahead. Like you have to give animals all these freedoms. It's actually quite simple as they're saying, according to their needs. And I assume most countries have that. But I guess two questions. Do you think you guys are winning because actually other countries don't have that and you do? Or it's because I guess German salient and awareness animal welfare, especially in the courts and legal system is actually quite progressive such that they just interpret the laws differently to other legal systems. 


Mahi: I'm not sure if I have a great answer for that. I think the German animal welfare law is probably ahead of some other countries. It's definitely not the best in the world. Politicians used to say that a lot and so we proved them wrong and now they stopped saying it. Then there's EU law, which should be applicable in every member state. I can imagine that on paper this sounds great, but in practice this may be much harder in some countries than it is in Germany. Can't really speak to that. Yeah, I think it's probably a combination of EU law and maybe like our lawyer says, we keep finding stuff like it's sometimes it's buried too deep and some annex. But even if it's annex. It's part of the law, basically. It's basically the law. 


Mahi: So you can use that, but you have to find the stuff and then find a way to actually start lawsuits, which could be extremely tricky in some countries. I think that could be the breaking point that animal orgs just don't have the right to sue. And also, it's a little bit fragile in Germany, environmental groups can, they have national law, they have the right to sue, and animal groups don't have that, even though in the constitution, environment and animals have the same legal level of protection. Unfortunately, the government had only decided to allow this kind of legal action, the right to sue for environmental groups, and they haven't added it for animal groups. So now the federal states on their own have to decide, do we want this? 


Mahi: Since the federal government isn't doing it, and some states say, yes, we want this, but then they might have a governmental change and take it away again, as I talked about. So it's a little bit fragile and we have to see what we can work with. Best case scenario, we do end up with a government that really wants to see the same standard - environmental and animal - to make that even the same for possibility to start lawsuits, that would be really helpful.

James: Do you think the main limitation for other groups not doing this is if they don't have the right to sue, it's a non starter. Do you think that's the main reason why other groups aren't pursuing more this kind of advocacy, especially EU groups? 


Mahi: Could be. Unfortunately, I don't have all the information here. I can imagine that it's a non starter because they don't have the right to sue. Could be the case that there are just not a lot of lawyers who know animal law. It's very rare in Germany, too. Nobody really teaches this in university. So you really have to kind of teach yourself or figure out about, find out about all the lawsuits that have been happening and learn from them, or be hired by one of the very few law firms that cover this. Seeing how difficult this is in Germany and how few people there are who can actually - are qualified to run these lawsuits, I can imagine maybe in other countries it's even fewer people and fewer possibilities. 


Amy: Yeah, that makes sense. Nice. Well, yeah, thank you. I feel like all of that. I know there's complexities within each system, political system, laws in different countries, but it's always interesting to hear the different progress that's being made and finding those, like you say, those avenues where you can pursue legal action. If there's laws that seem to be in a position to help animals. That's really useful to look into. One thing I'm interested to talk about is the meat tax that might finance animal welfare improvements. I'd love you to talk to us a little bit more about this and the kind of unique structure that this meat tax would provide. 


Mahi: Yeah, I'd love to. So just to clarify, we don't have that yet. It could happen. And actually, our last government came up with the idea - was a conservative led government - that was not terribly concerned about how animals were doing, but they were very much concerned about the reputation of farmers in Germany. And this has been getting worse and worse over the years with factory farming being such an issue. Also in the media, there's been a lot of coverage. There have been a lot of undercover investigations. 


Amy: And are they concerned. Sorry to interrupt. Are they concerned from an export perspective, like, in terms of their impression in other countries or within Germany itself? 


Mahi: So it seems to be that it's extremely important to farmers to be valued by society, and they have been complaining about that not being the case anymore. And actually, there were some reports of the kids of factory farmers actually being mobbed in school because they were the kids of factory farmers. 


James: No way. 


Mahi: And that kind of led to this debate that is not the kind of debate we would have about animal welfare, but the debate about what can we do to raise the profile of farmers in Germany. And the conservative government hired one of the former ministers of agriculture. So secretary of state minister, also a conservative guy, and they said, okay, please run this commission for us to figure out what we need to do to change things. And he said, well, basically, we need to improve the animal welfare standards. So it becomes that the farmers can show the public what they're doing. They can be proud of what they're doing again. The public will respect what they're doing again. So the big question was, how do we finance this? 


Mahi: And the idea of the commission was to actually use tax money to finance the transition of all farms in Germany to higher welfare standards. So one way they wanted to do that was by introducing a meat tax or working with the value added tax system. In Germany right now, there's kind of a discounted rate for meat and other animal products. And they said, let's bring it back to the normal rate and use the extra money to finance the transition of farms. Unfortunately, I think that was the crux where the last government didn't come to a conclusion. So they were debating, do we want a tax like a real new meat tax, or do we want to work with the VAT system and they didn't figure this out. We had new elections and the current government unfortunately isn't making this happen. 


Mahi: The next term- so we'll have elections next year. It looks like the conservative government might be in charge again. And so currently we are already working behind the scenes talking to the conservative politicians, reminding them of this, saying, hey, this is yours, and please make it happen this time around. I think this is a huge opportunity for the animals. 


Amy: Can you talk to us about the challenges with the meat tax? And I think this is similar to the chick culling conversation because often as advocates, we hear of new interventions and chicks are super cute. And so we go like, yes, it's awful. They're like ground to death or gassed to death on, you know, just as they're being born. So we must do something about that. And then, you know, perhaps the researchers are looking into it in more depth and finding that there's challenge that we might be causing more suffering by breeding, you know, more rodents to feed zoo animals or pets or whatever it is. And I feel like there's a similar challenge here where on the face of it, you hear about a meat tax and you're like, yes, as a vegan, absolutely. Meat should be taxed. 

Amy: And then researchers look into it and find that if it's done on perhaps environmental grounds, then it just moves consumers to consuming more chicken and fish, and the meat that would be taxed would be beef on environmental grounds. And so perhaps, again, more suffering. Can you talk to us a little bit about how those challenges might be alleviated in this instance? 


Mahi: Yeah, luckily, this is not an environmental tax at all. I can definitely see the problems. If you want to minimize CO2, you end up reducing beef and increasing chicken production and consumption. This would just mean that all meats, possibly all animal products would be taxed or the VAT discount would be taken away from that. I haven't really heard anybody saying that this could have a negative side to it. So in my mind, this is all positive. 


Amy: Yeah, it's so helpful when all of this is properly considered. Like I say, sometimes it's easy to just jump behind an initiative. But, yeah, that's really interesting that it could even be right across all animal products. 


Mahi: Yeah. And I would say meat tax probably wouldn't have a huge influence on production or consumption, I think maybe a little bit. So there's this concept of price elasticity where economists look at what happens if you increase the price of a certain product by 5%. Does that decrease the consumption also by 5%? Or maybe more or maybe less. So it's probably not going to be huge either way. People will want to eat meat, probably will continue eating meat, even if it's 10% more expensive, maybe reduce it a little bit. I think the really exciting part here is that the money will be used to transform the way animals are being kept. I think this is the key element here, the way the money would be used. 


Mahi: So the idea is to give all animals access to fresh air, give all animals more space, give all animals enrichment. So this is like using tax money to cover very basic asks that animal welfare advocates have been asking for for decades. I think that's really exciting. 


Amy: Again, just like such a unique position where the farmers, or there's an initiative where they're asking for it. It's not led by you saying we should be raising the profile. I've heard also there's challenge that the next generation down, you were talking about the children of farmers, but traditionally they would then take on the business. And I think there's challenge there that next generation are less and less keen on following in that generational footstep of taking on that farm. And so, actually, do you think that is something that could be interesting from an advocacy perspective, that if we tarnish the reputation of the industry so far, that new sort of modern generation would be less likely to want to take on a factory farm? 


Mahi: So I think it's important to bring the truth out for other reasons. My take is, if there's demand for meat, there will be supply. Then kind of the children of a family farmer say, we don't want to take over your business. Probably that will only mean there will be some more big agriculture companies who run these farms. So that wouldn't be my angle. But still, I think bring out the truth about how animals are farmed is quite essential for our work. 


Amy: Yeah, sure. Thank you. 


James: A few things you said, it seems like there's lots of cases where advocates aren't necessarily driving things like the retailers have an initiative or someone in the government wants to lead something. So in a way, I guess the beliefs around animal welfare are fairly progressed already in Germany, such that it's almost arising organically from people. They kind of know it's the right thing to do and it's only a matter of time, not if they're going to do it or not. And do you think this is a result of previous campaigns from other groups that are more focused on public attitudes, such that it's seeped into both the elite opinions of people in Germany or how do you think has even come to the stage where this is something they want to do of their own accord? 


Mahi: Yeah, I think the attitudes in Germany definitely do play a role. There's this EU barometer, I think it's called, where the EU asks citizens every couple of years about their attitudes and animal welfare as part of that questionnaire. And Germany always turns out like maybe in the upper third. It's not the best, but I'd say the public attitude really helps. And also that the media is very engaged and keeps reporting on animal welfare issues is also very important. And to take some credit for what's been happening in Germany. So since 2008, since I joined the foundation, I made it a top priority to talk to companies and raise the profile of animal welfare issues in those companies. And we started not only getting meetings, but kind of, we worked our way up the hierarchy started. I'm now talking to c level people. 


James: You have their phone number, so you just call them whenever you want, some. 


Mahi: Some of them at least. And so I think that kind of led to an overall environment, kind of a general feel that this is a topic that's of high priority and something needs to happen. And that it's also something where reputational damage can occur for companies, where maybe politicians want to be seen doing something about the issues. I think the attitudes and the general feeling of where things are in Germany are quite helpful. 

James: Maybe if I can pull out one more interesting thing I'm taking away from some of the amazing wins in Germany is also, I guess one was on this also the influence of elites is like super important, but also one was, I guess, like being bipartisan. It seems like even the conservative government is very interested in a quite meaningful way in improving animal welfare and doing it in an innovative way. So I guess is that something you've always prioritized is actually working with politicians on all sides of the spectrum just because you think that's just crucial for our issue. 


Mahi: The political work we've just started a little over a year ago, let's say one and a half years ago, to really start prioritizing that. Before we did that, we looked at the landscape and we saw we have several animal NGO's in Germany doing this type of work. Where can we add extra value? And we saw that not a lot of groups, or maybe none of the groups have really good relationships with the conservative party. It's just not the go to party if you want to get things done for animals. And we said, okay, maybe this is somewhere we can help. And we actually ended up hiring a consultant who used to be a minister of agriculture in one federal state, NRW again. She's a conservative. Now she's consulting us. She can open a lot of doors. She knows a lot of people. 


Mahi: Yeah, for us, it's always important to add value to the movement. And when we saw that, we decided, okay, let's jump into kind of this gap where hardly anything is happening and it's not as clear cut. Like, now that we learn more about the politicians and the conservative party, we realize, okay, some people are totally on board with us. So I went to parliament and had a meeting with actually one of the leaders for agriculture of the conservative party. And he started the meeting saying, oh, so you want to talk about transforming animal agriculture? We don't have to talk about this. I was like, okay, this is not going to go well. And he was like, he continued saying, well, we have to do it. And so he was like, yeah, there's no question, we have to do it. 


Mahi: So this is kind of one extreme of the conservative party, the one side, but others are saying, well, we just don't want to burden farmers with any more bureaucracy. We don't want to change animal welfare laws, we don't want any new taxes. So there's quite a broad spectrum. And now we are working to help strengthening the side that really wants to get stuff done for animals. 


Amy: It's so interesting, isn't it? And I think you just have to have a really open mind. My mind was definitely opened by Chris and Lorraine Platt from the conservative Animal Welfare foundation here in the UK. And as you say, everyone thinks, oh, it's a lefty thing, we would need to be speaking with the more left leaning parties to get progress in this area for animals. And when you actually step back and reflect and think that actually it's just about the levers and what is important to that party and sometimes also just the individuals, if they're just particularly pro animal. You know, previously one of our prime minister's wife was just very pro animal. And so there was a lot of stuff being passed through just because of their position. 


Amy: So it is interesting if you can kind of swallow a little bit of personal pride in some of the elements of the politics. And if it is just focusing on the things for animals, there are definitely opportunities there, if you can be open to them. Looking at the wide range of political opportunities.


Mahi: Yeah, for sure. I agree 100%. And also not advocating for the conservative party in Germany. But when you look at what has happened in terms of animal welfare law and all that, and all the progress. It was often the conservative party. So the animal welfare law was enacted by the conservative party, actually. And we had a conservative minister of agriculture saying, okay, I'm going to ban the last cages, the colony cages for laying hens. That was actually, the reasoning was quite interesting. She said, well, they don't play an economic role anyway. And that was because we got like over 100 commitments from companies. But again, at least, I mean, it was the conservative party doing that. And so I think that, as you said, Amy, there's always ways to get things done, even though you don't agree 100% with these people. 


Mahi: To me, it's fascinating how often you can find some common ground and how often it's maybe just the priorities are a little bit flipped upside down. But it doesn't mean that animal welfare is no priority at all. Like you talk to some conservatives they deeply care, often the ones who have cats or dogs at home. And so they are kind of always looking through this, at this, through kind of an economic lens, obviously, but they are not against this kind of by design or by default. They just have a different way of looking at it. And I think it's very important a task for us as advocates to figure out how to work with this and how to get the most out of it. 


Amy: Yeah, well said. 


James: Yeah. Well, maybe to wrap up the things on all the amazing things happening in Germany. And actually one thing we didn't talk about, but I think we'll link, is I think Germany seems to be one of the few countries in the world that has declining meat consumption per capita, which is obviously amazing. So I think the last hour has probably covered all the incredible things happening in Germany. So I guess, thank you to Albert Schweitzer foundation and all the other groups in Germany doing great work. What are your plans in terms of - what are the kind of campaigns or programs you guys are working on over the next couple of years to further push this forward?


Mahi: Yeah, what excites me the most is this combination of the retailers might want to do this shift, like really transform animal agriculture to at least somewhat higher welfare, and the government may be even being willing to finance that transition. I think there's some chance we can make both happen, and that would best case scenario. I don't think the chances are above 20%, but I think it's something really-


James: Worth pushing for. 


Mahi: Yeah, really worth like fighting for and putting a lot of resources into. And I think at least one of the two should work out. At least that is something I kind of have adjusted the focus of Albert Schweitzer foundation towards, to make sure at least one of these things happen. So either the retailers or the government really transforming the way animals are kept. 


Mahi: So for the next years, that will keep us quite busy. 


James: Very cool. Well, I think we're all very excited to see all that comes out. 


Amy: So the next section then, we're going to talk about running a large and also highly effective organization, as you've just spoken about. And again, referencing that talk that you gave at the AVA summit that James mentioned previously, which we will link once they're uploaded to the AVA summit YouTube channel, and highly recommend people checking that out. You spoke specifically about mistakes you made as a leader. And you know why that's important. Why it's important for leaders to be transparent with the mistakes that they're making. Can you maybe summarize some of your points from that talk about why you think that should be high on the agenda of leaders in this space in particular? 


Mahi: Yeah, something I didn't say in the talk, but I came across briefly afterwards was a saying, or quote, where the author made the point that when we make mistakes, we have this tendency to kind of turn away and pretend they weren't there and not admitting them to ourselves or to others. And the author said, let's change that attitude. Mistakes are basically pieces of art that we should look at and share with others and learn from. And I think kind of normalizing that attitude and being open that also as a leader, even the stakes are higher. Maybe that leads to people not wanting to admit to mistakes, just normalizing the fact that we still make mistakes even though we are in a position of power or responsibility. 


Mahi: And talking about this, I think it's something worth spending some time on and maybe we can all learn from that. 


Amy: Yeah, definitely. I feel like I've been reflecting on this quite a bit recently, trying to teach our eight year old daughter about learning from mistakes. It's so difficult because she gets really frustrated or embarrassed. And we're trying to communicate that it is just, you know, you're learning. It's trial and error. You're like, if you don't push yourself and make mistakes, then you're not progressing. And yeah, I definitely feel like particularly in the UK, there's a really negative culture around admitting mistakes. It's like something to be embarrassed and ashamed of. And yeah, I think that's particularly relevant, as you were saying to leaders. 


Amy: And I think actually Tania touches on this in the latest episode where she says about setting that example, role modelling the behaviour that you're wanting to pass on to your colleagues and people that you manage and role modelling, taking that time for reflection and learning from the mistakes that you're making. So, yeah, it's definitely something that I'm very interested in. 


Mahi: Yeah, great points. And recently at ASF, Albert Schweitzer foundation, we had what we called a fuck up night, where everybody came together and shared some of their mistakes and fuck ups, and we had a laugh about it and some mistakes we discussed. And again, kind of normalizing this and why be ashamed of mistakes that's so human? We could also be ashamed of breathing as humans. Something we do. Yeah, why not talk about it? 


James: How often do you guys do that? What's the format? 


Mahi: Yeah, we tried it for the first time recently. I'm sure we'll do some more of that. It was during an all hands meeting that was in person, which we don't have that often anymore, but a couple of times a year we do. I kicked things off, kind of shared some of my mistakes, and then somebody else from the leadership team shared their mistakes just to kind of set the stage for, okay, hey, we all do this. It's okay to talk about this. And then some of the employees also came forward saying, hey, this was a stupid mistake, and I did this. And, yeah, mostly it was funny, but sometimes, often there was a lesson there. So coming back to the pieces of art. Yeah, just showing our weirdly beautiful pieces of art. 

Amy: It's great that you have a culture that staff felt comfortable in sharing that. I think that's often the challenge. It's like you don't want to. Certainly for you to kick that off and be the first to say something, I'm sure that softened everyone's anxiety towards a session of that nature. So, yeah, I definitely must say something about the healthiness of the culture that you've created at Albert Schweitzer foundation.


Mahi: And ongoing work, I would say. So as we are on this topic of culture, we recently came up with a culture, like, actually written down. You always have a culture, whether you write something down or not. And just because you write something down doesn't mean that this is actually your culture. 


James: It's real. 


Mahi: Requires work all the time. Like, every day is kind of culture day. And working on culture day. 


James: What are some particular things that you've codified as your culture? 


Mahi: Yeah. Thanks for the question. My favourite one is called impact for the win, where we say impact is the highest priority. And we recognize people have some kind of views and needs and expectations, but those come second to impact. So impact always first. And it also means making tough decisions sometimes, and also for leaders, unpopular decisions, not to be afraid of that. When we are convinced we're doing the right thing, we kind of remind ourselves we have to do these things not to- at the cost, basically, of animals, not to do the uncomfortable thing. Then we have a part where we talk about the bravery and responsibility we have that we want to have. We want to make brave decisions. We want to have agency instead of scarcity. Don't know how familiar you are with these terms. There's a great article that we could link to that talks about the two. I think it's very worth reading. 


James: We'll definitely link it below. 


Mahi: Nice. And yeah, making mistakes and learning from it is part of it. Radical candor, like speaking very openly and always assuming that when a person critiques you, they have your best interest in mind and the animal's best interest in mind. Don't take it personal, just have very open and direct conversations.


Amy: And thinking of the mistakes, do you also feel as though you can be transparent with funders in those mistakes? Maybe, James, you can also speak to this as a funder, a fund manager. How do you feel, Mahi, admitting mistakes, especially when you might be speaking with a funder who might view them in a certain way. And James, how does that feel to receive as someone who could continue or kind of withdraw funding from that organisation based on those mistakes that occurred? 


Mahi: Especially talking to open philanthropy? I really, from the beginning, I got the vibe that if you tell us everything is fine, this is kind of a red flag, or at least a yellow flag for us. We do not believe that everything is always fine and everything has been fine for twelve months. There has to be something, a typical mistake, maybe a rookie mistake of a leader, would be to talk to funders and just paint the rosy pictures only. And I've come to learn that funders actually respect that a lot and appreciate it a lot when you talk about what didn't go well. And I think most funders are aware when they make a donation that not every single dollar or euro will be perfectly optimized and every little thing goes perfectly smooth. 


Mahi: I think they know that sometimes you have a hiccup, sometimes you invest in something, you learn that it doesn't work, you stop doing it, and they actually want you to stop doing it. So, yeah, these are some of the things I've learned talking to funders. And I think, yeah, it's basically, again, important to be quote unquote vulnerable, at least showing that you don't always have everything 100% under control because you just don't. 


James: Yeah, I totally agree with Mahi. I think there's a few things there. One's also, like, if you're not failing at anything, you're probably not, like, risk tolerant enough. You're probably not trying enough new things. Like, how do you know if you're doing all the important things in the world if you haven't tried a few and failed some? So I think that's one important thing and another exactly like Mahi said. I think I personally feel like I can trust people way more who do share their mistakes. And, you know, it's like in an interview, if you ask someone, what's your weakness? And they say, ‘oh, I work too hard’, that’s an immediate red flag. That's like, you're not honest, but if they're like, actually give you, like, a considered response. You're like, oh, they're self aware, they're honest, and then you trust them way more. 


James: So I think it's the same with admitting mistakes to funders. And yeah, I think slightly similar to main, but I guess personally, I think I can say this. I was like, well, one thing, Ari, and we think very highly of you about is in previous years, you were like, we don't necessarily need funding this year. Our funding gap is fine. And that just means when you do need funding, we're like, oh, this is real. He's not just saying that because he does actually tell us differently depending on what the organizational needs are. So it's just small things like that actually mean you can trust the group way more when they do come to you with an ask or something else. 


Mahi: You're not the first one saying this. So this was not planned as a trust building initiative at all. I just thought I'd be transparent about not needing funding for a couple of years. We were just. We were fine. And then I learned exactly what you said, James. I got a lot of feedback from funders saying, wow, we never heard of this before. Never a group ever told us they don't need funding right now. So it probably means more when you say you do need funding, you actually have plans you want to put into action. 


Amy: Do you think there might be some cultural challenges here as well? That perhaps for some, like, admitting error or mistakes or feeling as though there's a risk that admitting them would withdraw funding? I wonder if you find, James, that your opinion, and, like, Ari, having this as a stance could cause you to, like, judge certain people who find it really difficult to admit mistakes or, you know, you aren't able to build as trusting a relationship just because of some lower risk taking, as you were saying, and that being something that they feel, I guess, more comfortable with if it's starting a new initiative or running a new project. 


James: That's a good question. I don't think I have a great answer to that question, I guess. Definitely. I think culturally I have the sense that Germans are a bit more direct and honest than some other people, but I don't know what that looks like globally. And for me, the meta thing is, yeah, if someone isn't able to be open and transparent with you, then it's just really hard to trust their work and how things are going. And then I guess one example that comes to mind is Animal Welfare League, who, are based in Ghana, did this amazing post on the fast forum about, like, the mistakes they've made or like, the difficulties they've had in their work over the past year. 


James: And that, for me, was an amazing example of like, wow, this is a super cool group that is like super honest and direct and like, not only to us because we've just started funding them, but kind of publicly to like, the whole world in a way. So I think, you know, hopefully I can. I think everyone can model that kind of behaviour because seeing that is super inspiring, especially from a young, a new group. So I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but I guess my hope is that everyone could do it. It does take a bit of pushing. 


Amy: Yeah, definitely. And I think probably just communication from the funders. I think Amanda alluded to this in her episode as well, that perhaps they're not clear enough to say to people that it's okay. Like, you can admit challenges and we'd love to hear about the mistakes that you've made and the changes that you've made because of that. So, yeah, definitely. I think if you can communicate that to people to make them feel a bit more comfortable, that they could share that, then it's obviously highly valuable to you to learn and for them to learn from the mistakes that they did make. 


James: We've gone on a bit of a tangent, but actually bring it back to you, Mahi. I guess one question before we start closing up is what are the ways in which you've learned about good management and good leadership over the years? Have you read books? Is it trial and error? Do you have a mentor? What's been most useful for you


Mahi: In the early days, I think my ego got too much in the way of learning. I was slow to admit that I didn't have all the answers. I was more concerned about how I was perceived by other leaders and wanted to be the hero for the animals and all that. And I think that narrative I let go of over time, and that has been extremely beneficial. So in the past, I'd say a lot of trial and error. I tried to look for a mentor in Germany, didn't find one in my early days, and now I really benefit from talking to other leaders a lot. And some of the leaders are good friends of mine. And there's also something called the leadership exchange, where leaders come together every month, talk about their challenges. 


Mahi: And it's so interesting to see that everybody basically has the same challenges. And I actually talked to Liana Paris, who co runs the leadership exchange, because I asked her, hey, can I talk about this? Because they are not public yet. There's no website. There is a website called the leadership exchange, but it's not theirs. So she said, actually, they're now figuring out if and how they want to scale up over years. And she'd love to hear also from younger leaders if there is something they're interested in. So you could link to her LinkedIn profile, actually, in the show notes. And if we have younger leaders listening to this, saying, oh, this sounds interesting, I want to talk to other leaders about challenges and help each other solve these challenges. Just send her a quick message so she sees kind of what the demand is like. 


Mahi: That would actually be helpful. 


Amy: Yeah, absolutely. We'll send that. And was there something that sparked that? So you said you started off quite egoic, like focusing on people's perception of you and wanting to be the hero. Was there something specific that, like, caused that shift, like something that happened or a book that you read or a specific reference that started you on that journey to kind of shift to maybe a bit more of a selfless journey? 


Mahi: Yeah, we're going full circle. We're coming back to non duality here. 


James: There we go. 


Mahi: Actually, through meditation and some other experiences in nature and more ego-less experiences, I started feeling a lot more secure just being myself and not really caring so much about image. I have what other people see in me, and I think this is one of the benefits of being able to access states like non duality, to really have this experience of fundamental okayness. And you don't worry about all this stuff so much anymore. Actually, there has been some research being done of people who get into these states, and the amount of thoughts that are negative thoughts and worrying thoughts just goes down dramatically. All of that helps a lot. And, yeah, this kind of meditation journey I had played quite a big role. 


Amy: Yeah. Interesting. You're into meditation, aren't you, James? 


James: Yes. I'm actually going on a retreat in, like, three or four weeks, so we'll see how that goes. I don't think I'm going to reach fundamental well being or enlightenment in those five days, but it is a journey and it definitely plays a big role in my life and my team. So, yeah, I can attest to it being a good rock that takes you through hard times. And I think maybe I said it before on the podcast, but one quote from Ari that I always love is ‘you should be grateful for all the gifts in life you get, even the ones you don't want’. So when I have a negative thing coming up in my life, I'm like, this is a gift. This is a time to practise equanimity and not reacting or being okay with things. 


James: And I love Mahi, what you said, this fundamental okayness, you know, it's just whatever comes your way, you're just, this is fine. This is just life and you're okay with it. 


Mahi: The more original way to think of this, which I also liked a lot prior to my meditation stuff, is someone made the point - in your life, there's like a certain number of things that go terribly wrong and they will happen and just accept that those will come. And when they do happen, you can check one off the list, basically, and say, okay, we're done with that one. And now probably I'll have a break for a while, or even if the next one comes, then I might have a longer break afterwards. So kind of. I think that's a good way of looking at things, too. 


Amy: Lovely philosophical closing there. Lovely to wrap up on that. And, yeah, if you have any resources for your meditation journey that you'd like to share, we will absolutely link those for people interested in also trying this out or deepening their practice. Yeah, we will put those in the show notes. So, to close, Mahi, as James said, it's been such an insightful episode, and I'm sure people are taking a lot of information away from this particular conversation. Is there anything that you want to share that you're grateful about or excited about that has happened recently? 


Mahi: Really excited about the way Josh Balk and others are now using shareholder activism. All the great successes that come from that. I think Josh takes about credit for 10% of the stuff that happens that he's involved in. He's getting so much done, and he's actually now winning shareholder proposals. And for those of you, probably many of you are not really into this stock market stuff. I used to be for quite some time. So I know that winning a shareholder proposal as a small shareholder is basically impossible. And I think one of the first wins ever was from Josh, and he's now getting several of these. And also, if you get, it's a vote, and if you get 50 plus percent, you win. But also if you get 40 or 30%, it's already a huge deal. Usually you don't even get 5% of the votes. 


Mahi: So even if you only get 20%, the company will start taking the issue more and more serious. And I see just Josh and his team, the accountability board, managing to pull that off all the time. And it's really exciting. I also think it's really exciting, the bipartisan stuff we're seeing now, more and more people realising that it's worthwhile talking to conservatives and figuring out how to help animals through that. So this is also something I'm super excited about. 


Amy: Yeah, great. So Josh's work is through the accountability board, which we can also link to if you'd like to find a bit more out about the work that Josh is doing in the space. 


James: Yeah, I'm on like a. I think you are as well, Mahi. Like a private email list where Josh sends some of these wins. And it's like the highlight of my week whenever they come through. Yeah, it's incredible, all the stuff he's getting. He's getting done. So, yeah, huge credit to him. 


Amy: I feel very left out of that. 


James: Sorry. You'll have to ask Josh to go on the list. 


Amy: Everyone on the podcast now. 


James: Yeah, yeah. 


Amy: Influx of messages to Josh. 


James: In terms of recommendations, you'd have to listeners, anything you share in terms of books, blogs, podcasts, or anything else?


Mahi: Yeah, for sure. So let's finish up the meditation stuff for the fundamental wellbeing things. Call it awakening or whatever you want. There's a group called the Fundamental Wellbeing Foundation, and it kind of presents the research that has been done on that and explains different states, kind of awakening or whatever you want to call it. And they also run a course that seems to have the highest success rates in terms of getting people to experience non duality. They claim it's two thirds of the participants, and I actually send many of my friends their way and it kind of matches their claims. So many of my friends are now able to do that. Course is called 45 Days to Awakening, and the website is 45 Days to Awakening. Unfortunately, the landing page to me looks really spammy. 


Mahi: And then also the follow up page, they say, oh, only a couple of days left to sign up. Like, I really don't like this. But I promise you, if you do sign up, it's a fantastic course. And also, I think what's interesting to people who may not have as much money as a CEO of an NGO might have. So the course is $500. But if you don't have that kind of money, you can just send the Fundamental Wellbeing Foundation an email explaining your situations briefly, just saying, hey, I'm animal activist. I don't make a lot of money. I could maybe afford $200. That would already be a big investment for me. Could I do this for that price? And I will most likely say yes. So if that stops you, the price tag stops you from doing it. 


Mahi: It shouldn't, just reach out to them. They probably can make something happen for you. And one reason I recommend this is that I see resilience rates in the movement. I think they have been declining quite a bit, maybe especially through Covid, where people were in isolation. I also see that a lot with younger activists. And I really think meditation is one of these tools you can also use to build resilience. So, yeah, very highly recommend. Yes, maybe talk about another tool. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of books to recommend, but I think your other guests have all the great books and blog articles and podcasts. So I recommend an app. It's called Freeletics. And again, it's kind of physical activity app, and it gets you through all kinds of workouts, usually using your own body weight. 


Mahi: I've been using that for the last almost a year now, and it's very rare for me to stick to something that long in terms of physical activity and working out. But it's very clever. It gives you scores, it adjusts the workout according to your progress. I think it's just a very smart app, and I really like it and enjoy it. And I also think, like, the fitness stuff might also be a key to build more resilience and just to feel more comfortable in life. So if you don't have a workout routine, maybe check that out. And as the saying goes, the best workout is the one you actually do. So if you have something else that works for you, that's great. You don't have to do Freeletics, but if you've been struggling, maybe give that a try. 


Amy: Amazing. Thank you. Great recommendations there, all of which we will link in the resources. Thanks, Mahi. So finally then, the kind of closing pitch, is there anything you would like to add? How can people get more involved in your work? Obviously we will link your website where people can donate to your important work. But are you hiring currently? Do you need any volunteers? Anything you'd like to say to finish off? 


Mahi: Yeah. So thanks for the donation plug. If you want to only make a small donation, if you're interested in learning more, that's a good way to do it because once you are a donor, you get quarterly updates that dive a little bit deeper into what we're doing than our website does. Especially our English website is just a tiny website. We don't update it regularly because all our work is in Germany and we don't translate too much of what we're doing into English. So that may be of interest. And for the German speakers, please do sign up also to our newsletter where we'll have online activism and offline activism opportunities when we're running campaigns. For instance, you can join a protest. If you do speak German, please check out our job offerings on our German website. 


Mahi: For now, I don't see us hiring non-German speakers. It has to be at least a decent level of German because we are so focused on the work here in Germany. Yeah, I think those are the best ways. We obviously do have social media and all of that, so follow us there if you're interested. 


James: Nice. Very cool. Thank you so much, mahi, for this. Yeah, super interesting conversation. I guess it's. Yeah, you're right. It was nice. It went full circle from meditation and ended back in meditation. I think your recommendations were nice and wholesome, too. So I just want to say thanks for all your amazing work and this very interesting conversation.


Mahi: Yeah, thank you, James. Thank you, Amy. I've been a huge fan of your podcast from the beginning. So great to be a guest, and I'll definitely share that with my friends.