How I Learned to Love Shrimp

2025 Highlights: All the best bits from How I Learned To Love Shrimp

• James Özden

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Today, we’re bringing you a special highlights episode! It’s a roundup of some of the most interesting conversations we had in 2025. They include:

  • Vicky Bond (Madre Brava) on what it's really like to lead in animal advocacy 
  • Lewis Bollard (Coefficient Giving) on the strategies that win and traps to avoid 
  • Dawn Neo (Global Food Partners) on the 4+ billion hens in cages in Asia and how we can help them
  • David Cole (author of Engines of Liberty) on what we can learn from the marriage equality and gun rights movements 
  • Carley Betts (Open Wing Alliance), 50th episode special: 5 leaders on key challenges and opportunities
  • David Coman-Hidy (The Navigation Fund), 50th episode special: 5 leaders on key challenges and opportunities
  • Karolina Sarek (EA Animal Welfare Fund), 50th episode special: 5 leaders on key challenges and opportunities
  • Haven King-Nobles (Fish Welfare Initiative) on why high agency is critical for entrepreneurship 
  • Penny Tehlilah (Animal Activism Collective) on uniting "welfarists" and "abolitionists" through pressure campaigns
  • David Kay (now at Kraft Heinz) on the emerging cultivated meat industry 

Chapters:

  • (00:00:00) Cold Open
  • (00:01:55) Lewis Bollard on what advocates commonly get wrong.
  • (00:05:34) Vicky Bond on overcoming self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome 
  • (00:09:07) Haven King Nobles on how to help new projects succeed and supporting new founders
  • (00:15:48) Penimah Tehilah on how pressure campaigns can unite the movement. 
  • (00:29:37) David Kay on the importance of centering animals in our advocacy. 
  • (00:33:34) Dawn Neo on changing informal markets and production in low income countries
  • (00:36:00) David Cole on the importance of incrementalism in past social movements
  • (00:52:25) Carley Betts on moving past good cop and bad cop binaries in campaigning 
  • (00:57:17) David Coman-Hidy on the importance of political advocacy
  • (01:01:19) Karolina Sarek on progress for shrimps 

For those who miss Amy as a co-host, you’ll be very happy to know that a bunch of these snippets include her too.

Hope you enjoy the episode! 


With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing!

If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

James:

Hey everyone, happy 2026 to everyone, and hope you guys have all had a nice end of year and start to this new year. Today we're bringing you a pretty special highlights episode. So rather than a new conversation, this will be a roundup of some of the most interesting conversations that we had in 2025. And picking this felt what I imagine it feels like to pick your favorite child, and it was very hard. But I managed, and I think it's a great overview of some of the most important trends or discussions happening right now in the farmed animal movement. The way we've done it is we've picked about a five-minute segment from the following guests, which I'll read out in a second, so you can get all the best bits you may have missed over the past year. And even if you're a die-hard listener, which I hope you all are and you listen to every single episode religiously, well, great, you can listen to some of the best bits again and refresh your memory. So the guests that will be featured today are Vicky Bond from Majra Brava, Lewis Bollard from Coefficient Giving, formerly known as Open Philanthropy, Don Neo from Global Food Partners, David Cole, who's the author of Engines of Liberty, Carly Betts from the Open Wing Alliance, Dave Komenheidi from the Navigation Fund, Carolina Sarek from the EA Animal Welfare Fund, Haven King Nobles from the Fish Welfare Initiative, Penny Kalila from the Animal Activism Collective, and last but not least, David Kaye, who is now at Kraft Heinz. And for those of you, and I know it's a big group, who miss Amy as my co-host, you'll be very happy to know that she is in a bunch of these clips because they're from earlier in the year. So you get to reminisce and listen to her voice as well. Without further ado, hope you enjoyed the episode. We have Lewis Bollard on what advocates commonly get wrong. What are some things you think advocates are kind of like, you know, miscalibrated on, or like, you know, they have some maybe people have some belief, you know, obviously this is very in general terms, so from what you've experienced, is like, you know, maybe people might expect cultivated meat to come radically transform the market in like five or ten years. And I think most insiders don't think that's the case. Is there anything else that you think that's like a quite common misconception in the movement that is potentially quite important?

Lewis Bollard :

So I think the cultivated meat one is yeah, very real. That like I I see vast overoptimism on the timelines there. Like I think it is totally possible on much longer timelines. It's not only gonna lead to disappointment, as I think it has already, as people are seeing like cultivated meat one companies going out of business and and getting really sad because they thought it was all gonna take off so quickly. I think it also distorts what the strategy should be. Like, I think if you think it's a really long-term play, it makes more sense to get like to invest in RD and do other things that are on a much longer timeline. A more general phenomenon I see is I think people have this feeling that there are just like a ton of really cost-effective interventions out there and they're just waiting to be discovered. And like there are all these things that if we just like devoted more resources to them, we would find like tons of other things that are as good as corporate campaigns. And I think the reality is actually that social change on every movement is insanely hard. And that the the default for the vast majority of tactics and strategies used in social movements is they fail. Like it's just it is actually really hard to change the SQL. And so I think we've gotten incredibly lucky in both discovering corporate campaigns on Aeroshua and having advocates who've been able to so skillfully use that tactic. And I am optimistic that we will find some other routes that are as cost-effective, as impactful. But I don't think we should think that, like, oh, it's just a case of like, you know, giving some more money to some local advocates here and then they'll work it out. Like, I actually think it is really hard to find those things. And you know, and that also means people should like go easier on themselves. Like if they find that like, you know, the project they've tried to do for two or three years failed, like not beat themselves up about that. Like, that is just like absolutely the the most likely outcome because it is the case that social change is really hard.

James:

Yeah, yeah. I guess it's kind of like your first point of maybe our prior should be things won't work. And if they do, it's a welcome surprise, not like this will definitely work, this will kind of radically shape the movement and we'll make loads of change.

Lewis Bollard :

Yeah, that's right. And I think I think like the funding dynamic for nonprofits is part of the problem here, where it's like to get funding from a philanthropist, groups, advocates, and they only need to go fund it, go fund it and tell them why they're like super confident that this is definitely gonna work out. Like if they went to them and they're like, I'm pretty sure this is gonna fail, but there's like you know, a five percent chance that it's really impactful and it really works out, most funders will be like, Cool, I'm not interested. And so I I do think funders, including us, should do a better job of being comfortable with that high level of uncertainty and comfortable making bets on on low probability things. Yeah, that doesn't mean you have to bet on everything. Because I think sometimes people infer from that. They'll hear me say something like that, and they're like, well, why didn't you support my project then? Because like my project's low probability. And I'm like, yeah, it's like you still you still have to make choices between the two, right? Like you still have to make trade-offs and fund everything. But I think there is there is something real to like just appreciating in advance how low the probabilities are and a lot of a lot of new approaches.

James:

Yeah, yeah. I think this is funny. I think trap that I've seen written about, oh, I'm trying to achieve this thing, and you know, if there's a 1% chance of me succeeding, you know, it'll be huge. And it's like, well, everyone uses the same 1% benchmark because it sounds small, but actually it can be really high. Like if you're trying to change like legislation in your country, odds are it's like way less than 1%. Next, we have Vicky Bond on overcoming self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome. Uh is anything else you want to say that maybe you didn't cover like interesting lessons you learned, like lessons for other people, or does that anything that maybe maybe is now come to your memory that you wanted to mention previously?

Vicky Bond :

Don't let let self-limiting thoughts get the better of you, I guess. Like I remember when I started THRUK, I went and did cliff jumping, and I was like, if I can jump off this cliff, it was very high. Then I can do this. Do you know what I mean? Like doing sometimes setting it doing stuff outside of your comfort zone in real life can allow you to find more ease to do stuff out of your comfort zone, I think, in your working life because you're pushing yourself outside those those boundaries. Um, and just remembering that growth doesn't come unless you step outside of that comfort zone. So try not to listen to the self-doubt and and push yourself forward. I think that's really important.

James:

Nice, that's cool. Actually, maybe I did have one question you you meant jogged my memory. On imposter syndrome, I guess you're mentioning you had that maybe quite a lot early on, and I'm kind of curious to like how have you managed to kind of deal with it or get over it or acquire that voice.

Vicky Bond :

Yeah. So yeah, I would say definitely. I see it.

James:

Besides besides cliff jumping.

Vicky Bond :

Yeah, besides cliff jumping, which I don't necessarily recommend. There's a good book on imposter syndrome that helped. That was called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. It is not just for women, by the way, this book. I I don't love the title for many reasons, but uh it helps identify different ways that imposter syndrome can show up. And I think self-awareness is the first step in overcoming anything. And then I'd say meditation helped because it kind of quietens the chatter that can happen and allows you to process things more effectively than if you're just not sleeping, for instance. And then I would say more broadly, um it's just pushing yourself a little bit outside your comfort zone. And every time you put yourself outside your comfort zone and it goes well, which it will, inevitably, things will go well, things won't go well. That's just like a little bit of encouragement, right? That like, oh no, I do know something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe I am okay doing this, that can help you. And I I I feel like in the NGO world, I've seen a lot of people with imposter syndrome. I feel like very, very sensitive people come into this, into this space, sometimes with bad experiences in part previous roles. And again, I think that's a part important part of being a leader is just like being there to listen, support, and guide, and try to recognize when imposter syndrome is playing a role and maybe bring that up because I think some people don't realize that they're suffering from imposter syndrome. And you can see as a leader or as a manager that that's kind of what's happening, and bolstering them and and giving a lot of encouragement, I think is essential in being able to kind of overcome that. And I was really lucky to have Dave uh Cameron Heidi as like a mentor at THL and he was our chairperson of the board and just real support in like giving me more confidence, I would say.

James:

Nice. That's great. Yeah, I find that uh even when sometimes go well, people can still be like, oh, like they don't dwell on the successes, they quickly move on, or they kind of maybe try to explain that away. So I think yeah, having some sort of positive reinforcement or like forcing yourself to dwell on the on the achievements, I think is quite important.

Vicky Bond :

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

James:

Next, Haven King Nobles on how to help new projects succeed and supporting new founders.

Amy :

Do you think there's an issue in our movement with high agency or the sense of like showing up being confused with maybe like an arrogance or something else? Like I definitely remember, well, first of all, so I feel like AM charity entrepreneurship have this reputation with like skewing young, as we've said, like kind of less experienced, fresh out of uni types. And I really specifically remember meeting you here when I was working for THL at the time and it was at the care conference, and you were coming to us saying, like, we're starting Fish Welfare Initiative. And I feel like the general impression was like, who are these guys? They're like, like you say, like early 20s, yeah. Just gonna take on fish. That's you know, that's totally fine and acceptable. Do you feel like it's a challenge in the movement that maybe we don't look at high agency in the same way that you're presenting it today?

Haven King-Nobles:

It's this is a tricky question. I do feel like it can certainly come across as arrogant to be someone who who seems and who frankly, in many ways, is not qualified to do something to say, hey, like this hard problem in the movement that you all haven't prioritized yet. We're tired of waiting. We're gonna take it on. We're gonna do it. Um, but we're gonna do it. Yeah, that can certainly come across as arrogant. And in some way, I do think you need almost a naive level of confidence in your own ability to pull this sort of thing off. So probably the people who are likely to succeed are more likely to be ones who skew more towards the overconfident and even arrogant side of things. My theory about the movement at the broadest level is that we're more likely to succeed if we have a really pluralistic movement where there's a lot of different approaches, it's a bit messy, people are innovating a lot, trying new things. And there will almost necessarily, if we take that mode, there will be a lot of failure, right? There'll be a lot of new projects being started, either with a current organization or in a new organization where we try something crazy and it doesn't work. And that's okay. I think we need to accept that this failure is a byproduct of being bold and and trying novel things. So I would ask that, you know, Amy, the the more experienced people like you, when you're meeting these upstart kind of charities or new projects at a current charity, give them like a little patience. Sometimes they will come across as arrogant, sometimes naive. You you certainly shouldn't just say, okay, you do your thing, and I'm not going to worry about it. Where more experienced people have an idea that someone is approaching something wrong, they should nudge them on that. So one of the it seems really stupid now that we didn't think of this, but one of the key pieces of advice we got early on from Christoph, who used to work at Capassion World Farming and now works at Shrimp Welfare Project, was that hey, are you guys thinking about species differences at all? Because you're talking about fishes like they're just one group of animals, but actually there's all sorts of different ones.

James:

And we were like, what? How many are there?

Haven King-Nobles:

Yeah, there's hundreds in turn. It's crazy. Um, but we literally just hadn't thought of this, but uh a really experienced, wise person like Christoph taking the time to sit us down and like just question something that like seems so obvious we should have thought of it, but we didn't. That was really helpful for influencing our strategy and helping us get to the right answers quicker.

Amy :

Yeah. And for reference, you know, I feel like I think about this moment a lot and the position that I was in. And and actually, I don't think we were as collaborative as I think would have been helpful. I do actually think about it personally a lot when I now think of entrepreneurs, people that have gone to conferences and they're like presenting and saying, this is a new thing we want to work on. Like they're like balls that you have to have to be in that position. I think I just respect way more now than I did previously. So yeah, I I've definitely changed my view on how I would approach people in that position.

James:

Yeah, and I totally agree with one of your earlier comments, Haven, that there is an element of naivety or like idealism that actually is super helpful. And I think you can tell I've been reading too many business books because I'll give another business analogy, but like so many startups have been founded by people in their early 20s who were like, oh, this is a problem in the world, that why doesn't anyone fix it? You know, like big challenger banks in the UK like Monzo or Starling, they were like, oh, like banking sucks, like super slow, super legacy. Why don't we just improve everyone else is like, no, regulation is so complicated, you never want to do that. They're like, we'll do it. And I guess what? Like they did it. So it's like, I think even now, even though I haven't been in the movement for Uber long, even now I feel a bit jaded. I'm like, oh, this idea will never work, that will never work, and feel a bit critical. But I think you're totally right in that you know, people should I we should just have more shelter and goal and we should have people trying things that may or may not fail. And if it fails, great, we learn something. And if not, then we're proven wrong and it's probably something good from animals. So I totally agree, being a bit more open-minded seems yeah, uh and support actually seems very useful.

Amy :

Yeah.

James:

Yeah, definitely.

Amy :

I think there's something about taking it from the drafts as well. And I wonder if early on actually some of the impression goes from the fact that this it's not as if no one ever thought about fish, and then you guys came in and did. I feel like it's on people's back burner, it's like in their drafts. And so then you're coming and saying, Oh, I'm gonna go on this topic. There was a sense in the movement that we all now need to up our game in the fish area because like maybe there's gonna be funding there or whatever the motivations are, and you're just speeding up that process for them. So just getting stuff out of drafts, I think, is always helpful. Like, we're actually gonna start on our site when there's campaign ideas that just never really took off, just like giving them to people like, oh my god, I would much rather someone else did it than it stayed like an idea that just sits in our, you know, in our heads for years and years and never takes off. So yeah, I think the drafts thing is important too.

Haven King-Nobles:

Yeah. I I did feel in and sometimes still do feel like people have kind of like the stay in your lane, don't step on people's toes thing. And and you know, there's some validity to that, kind of when it's the case that like one group is just much more qualified or more likely to succeed at at a project than another group. But I think mostly that sort of intuition comes from the wrong reasons. It comes from the motivation, whether or not we admit it to ourselves that, hey, we want the funding, we we want the credit for doing this. Yeah, the glory, right? But ultimately, I think the way we ought to all be thinking about this, of course, as we all know, right, it's it's for the animals. What how can we best help the movement? So, you know, I'm I'm really against kind of like intellectual property, we could say, in the movement. I I really like your idea. If if someone has a good campaign idea, it should be out there for anyone to run. And whoever runs it first, great. Like, let's see how that goes, provided, of course, they can do it at some reasonable level.

James:

Penny on how pressure campaigns can unite the movement. What specifically do you refer to when you're saying pressure campaigns?

Penny Tehilah :

So a pressure campaign is a campaign that has a specific ask of a company, yeah, whether you're getting them to it usually has to do with getting them to like remove a product, you know. Like all these fur pressure campaigns, it's getting a designer to drop fur from their line. It's something that is like actually doable.

James:

Yeah, concrete and winnable. Something yes. Okay, nice. And I I guess I mean I I totally agree. I'm excited about these kind of campaigns as well because you know, I I think it's come up in a couple of conversations I've had is like, you know, winning is great. Win winning is good for so many reasons. You know, it's it's good to build momentum, people get excited, it draws more people in, and I guess, yeah, how come I guess you or AAC thinks pressure campaigning is such like a important thing that we should focus on as a movement?

Penny Tehilah :

I just think anything that like wins for animals or tangibly move the needle forward for animals is what animals deserve.

James:

Yeah.

Penny Tehilah :

I know personally do it, I came up doing outreach. That was like how I got started in the animal rights movement, like so many of us had. And it was just so I really sat back at the end of the day, and after like years, and I was like, I don't know if I've made a single person vegan. Like, I don't know. None of my family or friends have gone vegan, and all these people I've these hundreds of people I've talked to over years, I don't know any of them. Like, I can't keep up with them. I don't know if they went vegan. Like, I have no way to know if I have made any change in their life. And that to me was just like, I like I uh this is not what animals deserve for us to not be able to like know if we're helping them at all. Whereas pressure campaigning, it's like I now can 100% with confidence say that this store or this restaurant is no longer selling foie gras and they never will. And neither are these, you know, 50 other restaurants that I campaigned against, or this store's designer is no longer working with fur. And these media outlets are writing about this designer and their influence of no longer working with fur, which is changing how other designers work and how fur is seen like in the fashion world. It's just so tangible and something that we can like really point to. And I think that's like the main draw for people, which was the thing that helped them get the welfare campaigns because you know that that's like a very tangible thing and it's measurable and we can see it, and it undoubtedly helps animals. And I think once some activists, including myself, like I had a very similar journey with like welfarism, but once we get over that like mental block of this isn't what animals deserve, and we like have to be like advocating for all of them. Once you really look at it and are like, I am making like actual real change for millions of animals every single year. Like now, if we win this cage-free campaign, it's millions of animals who will no longer be locked in cages. For example, like Marc Jacobs at the time when we were campaigning against him, did not sell fur. He'd recently used fur. Yeah, he recently used fur in like a collaboration in with another designer. And we, you know, then used that opportunity to get him to announce the policy because it was relevant. But that wasn't necessarily a satisfying ask. Same thing with like these omni locations. Like a lot of most omni locations do not sell foie gras. They have in the past, but it's more about asking them to make a commitment and a policy into the future. So it's not always super satisfying, but everybody understands like how this will tangibly help animals. So, you know, the activists are already on board with doing things that maybe don't feel super more like satisfying.

James:

Yeah, yeah.

Penny Tehilah :

But that do help animals.

James:

That is interesting. Yeah, it almost seems like people, yeah, I guess what they really want is maybe like some like tangible signs of progress for animals. And it's not like I mean, I I kind of share your opinion, which is like I don't think people are often like ideologically against like improvements to animals' welfare. They're like, yes, this is a good thing. And I I agree, like it's a bit misnomer to be like, this is all the welfareists want. It's like it's like no way. It's like if you go talk to people who work at these groups that do welfare campaigns, like most of them like well, on the end of animal farming, if not at least like the country farming, like almost like 99% of the time. So it's like it's very similar goals, it's just how we get there. So I guess it's kind of quite reassuring to see that you know, people in the grassroots can get fired up about this stuff because they also know, like, you know, this is gonna make a huge improvement to loads of lives, and this is just like one step, and like it's not where we start, but we just like we just kind of keep going and keep going and keep going. So yeah, I guess uh it feels inspiring that, yeah, you guys are doing this. And and like how do you think we can see more of this kind of collaboration as a movement between like people like the AAC and ICO? Like, do you do you think there's go for more of this? And like almost like what would you recommend to people who do want create things like this?

Penny Tehilah :

I hope we see more collaboration like this in the movement. I think this is so, so important. Disconnect doesn't just end with like abolitionist groups and welfare groups or whatever. There's just so much division in our movement and like writing people off. And I think that we're never gonna see like this type of collaboration if we don't start not writing people off and getting to know these organizations and the people involved in these organizations and their interests. Like I mentioned, I wasn't always uh welfare supporter or whatever. Yeah, I had. I was very much like I came up through this where abolitionist was like the good term, and then welfarist was like the slur almost like the bad term. And honestly, what really did it for me personally was, and this kind of sounds like a little bit dumb now that I say it out loud, but it was like the shrimp I stock ablation footage. I just watched a clip of it because I like heard about those protests, and I was like, okay, like shrimp, we're asking these companies to not like do this thing. All right, that's what we're gonna do. Okay.

James:

It's kind of weird, huh?

Penny Tehilah :

Then I watched the footage and I like I it was like real for some reason it was really like gut wrenching. It was this like the shrimp getting like her like the eyes cut off, and then she was like rubbing her like eye stalks, and yeah, it was like I'm kind of at this point where I've seen so much like animal suffering, it doesn't always like elicit this gut reaction in me. But for some reason I was just like like started tearing up, and I was like, this is I don't know, this is if if we can do something, if we can do a campaign that makes it and and the reason they have their eyes cut off is because of this this incorrect assumption that it helps them like lay more eggs. I'm like 99% sure that's why the practice exists. And yeah, and it's like an incorrect thing, like it doesn't actually work, and also it's just like horrible mutilation, like having your eyes cut off. So, like if we can do something that makes it so some of the largest like shrimp producers or distributors don't source from this type of cruelty or do this type of cruelty, like why would we not, you know? Yeah, for example, like the prison abolitionist movement, like the prison abolitionist movement is not like upset when better conditions for prisoners are secured. You know what I mean? Just because prisons are not abolished right now, does you know, doesn't mean that they're like, no, we don't want like GED programs for prisoners, or we don't want like better living conditions or better food or garden programs or whatever. You know, we don't want to, we we can't improve the lives of these prisoners at all until prisons are abolished. Like no other justice movement thinks like that.

James:

Anyway, lots of them do think like that, which is kind of sad. But I also think, yeah, we when you're gonna drill down, like lots of movements do have this inherent intention, but I I agree, like if you ask people like, should we have better conditions for, you know, like oh if like have you know better benefits, people still be poor, but like we're trying to, you know, maybe have universal healthcare or something. People like, oh no, it's not like UBI, therefore we don't want to. People like, yes, like it's good to you know have small wins, and you can still be like asking for bigger stuff and fighting for bigger stuff. So yeah, I mean, I I agree that you know it's not one or the other.

Penny Tehilah :

Yeah, that's a good point. Like the social justice movements who do tend to think like that, I feel are weaker, or at least it makes their positions weaker. Yeah, if we can get slowly there or actually do so, we can't just like I don't know, like a logical fallacy that's like we throw your hands up in the air and you're just like not gonna do it because it's not absolutely perfect or something. Yeah, it like reminds me of that. I feel like I got away from the question of how we can work collaboratively.

James:

How do we have more of this? And actually, well, I guess something that like comes up from like what you said previously, maybe in terms of how we can do more of this. One is like, you know, the very first thing you said, which is you know, people spending uh time together seemed like an important thing is like you actually get to know other activists and know them as individuals, you know, oh actually, you know, that maybe they're just like me, have similar beliefs, want to help animals. And then maybe another bit that's sort of set up for me was like some of the ICAR people came down to the CAF protest and the AAC protests. So like it it was like uh it wasn't like a oh please do stuff with us and we won't support you was like, no, like we will first like help out with you with your campaigns and then come do whatever needs to be done. And then if you want to join ours, like that would be great. Like, are those like two of the things that kind of you think worked in your opinion?

Penny Tehilah :

Yes, having them actually come to our actions and support our stuff. And we also did uh our New York convergence, we did a couple actions for ICO. Nice, uh yeah, and but it was mainly like fur and bois grasp centered, but like all of the nearly all of the staff members at ICO came to most of the some of them even came for the whole thing. Nice the New York Convergence, and they were like stoked that we were doing their actions and supporting their campaign. They actually came out to to all of our stuff. And I think that is super important, like having the leadership of these organizations coming out to the demos and giving the energy and see having it be like, I think this is also like a strength of AAC and ICO and CAF is that the people who run these organizations are at the demos and like meeting activists directly and working on their campaigns like collaboratively. I think I feel like I've seen in other like larger organizations, it's and I mean, granted, like with big organization, leadership cannot be like at every demo. So I'm not like saying that's you know a huge misstep or something. But it tends to create this divide of like when the people telling you to do the protest like aren't coming to the protests with you, it creates this relationship of this is my campaign, and you activists are helping me with my campaign or my organization, my organization's campaign, and this is how you can help it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Penny Tehilah :

And I think something that AAC and these other grassroots organizations do differently is we are with these activists, like boots on the ground, and this is our campaign, and we are like equals in this, and this is how we can work together for like our campaign, and giving people like autonomy in a campaign to do the type of demos that work with their community and fit better with their culture and with their activists. That gives people a huge sense of autonomy, yeah, which helps with so many things. It helps them take ownership in a campaign. They feel more connected to it, they're more likely to do demos with it. And they're more likely to stick around in activism for a while. They feel like this is some this is a campaign that I am like super involved in and is mine as well. Where I'm not just like following orders, I'm like organizing and you know, working on this campaign, like along with these people. And like we provide a lot of guidance for these people, but it we really try and like empower them to like activists to have as much autonomy in a campaign as possible. And then also I think, yeah, like iCaw and the leadership and like the team being like at our actions in person and like doing it, yeah, was super helpful. And it helped our activists, like I it worked like the way I was just describing. Like the activists saw the iCar people being crazy and holding it down at the demo, and then they're like, Oh, I want to do these people's campaigns, you know? I'm like, they're with it.

James:

Yeah, yeah, they're cool. Yeah, yes, that is cool. And now, David Kay on the opponents of centering animals in our advocacy.

David Kay :

One of the things for me that I've really been wrestling with is the importance in at least certain contexts of centering the animal welfare issue of you know, animal agriculture, as opposed to other issues like environment or health, which obviously have a role to play, and this is highly context dependent depending on who you're talking to. But I think at a place like Harvard, the mission is is largely focused on, you know, normalizing animal welfare as a serious environmental society and governance issue or ESG issue, versus, you know, by my approach to advocacy previously when I was an undergrad, for instance, was let's try and get dietary change and let's just make the argument that is the most sort of impressionable on the people we're talking to. I think now it's less about dietary change and more about a change of heart and mind, and more about focusing on the animals themselves as a way to sort of drive home the point that like this is an issue that matters, and normal people should have permission to care about this, uh, no matter what sort of setting they're in.

James:

That's super interesting, yeah, because I I agree. I think the movement has kind of moved a lot towards, like, like you said, focusing on what is persuasive, and often that can be health of people's personal motivations or environmental for institutional policies. But you're kind of saying actually maybe the downside of this is we kind of actually don't talk about maybe the core issue for some of us, which is animal welfare, and then also in some cases that there's these weird negative impacts, maybe people eat less beef and more chicken and fish, which obviously is actually worse on animal grounds. Is that is that kind of your view? And how did that kind of actually come about to to being your kind of new mindset?

David Kay :

Yeah, that that's a big part of it. I to me there are a couple issues. So one is like you said, you know, it could motivate these sort of strange actions in in areas where these two issues diverge. And I think we can look at, you know, from a broader perspective, it's not just about individual dietary change of eating beef instead of uh or sorry, of eating chicken instead of beef, but also just, you know, what if there are solutions that address the environmental issues, but do not at all address the animal welfare issues or even make them worse on a systemic level? So that's one thing. I think a second thing is what I've found um being in a place like Harvard Business School, which I am now, and then I did my undergrad at Stanford, there are a lot of people that care about this issue, but they don't feel like they have the permission to vocally care about the issue, right? Like they think, you know, this is an issue for a very specific type of person. And it's not, you know, if you're in an elite, you know, business society, for instance, and you're going to work in a suit and tie every day, this is not something that you're allowed to really care about. One of the things I've noticed is just by having programming on campus and a club and students that are vocally sort of out as animal advocates, it allows others to sort of come out as people who care about animals as well. And I think that's not something you get if the only thing you're talking about is environmental. I think the other piece of this is that, you know, I think institutional change is going to move the needle more than individual dietary change. And I say this as somebody who personally, you know, does not eat meat, but I think that in my time at Upside Foods and beyond, you know, I've met so many people that are really moving the needle for animals and they aren't necessarily vegan or vegetarian. And I think if I had the choice between, you know, mate waving a magic wand and making them change their dietary preference but stop doing the important work they're doing, I would easily say keep up with the institutional work. And so I think it's almost more important to get people to care about the issue than it is to get them to make the personal sacrifice of reducing or stop eating meat.

James:

Next, we have Don Neo on changing informal markets and production in low-income countries. 2025 is a big year for deadlines and accountability. I'm kind of curious, like, in terms of our priorities as a movement, like, do you think m most of our efforts should be on enforcing some of the existing commitments to make sure we kind of build this initial supply chain or do you like, or how much value should we put on trying to get new commitments? I'm kind of curious on how you kind of split the efforts of maybe you or your time about or other people's time more generally.

Dawn Neo :

You know, it's interesting to look at the informal versus formal market in each. In countries where they are less industrialized, most of the consumption is happening in the informal market. So the formal market, we have to actually look at which one has the volume to make the shift. Because ultimately, what created the shift in the US was because initially it was because McDonald's had 8% of uh the supply chain in the US and that you know cascaded the change. In EU, it was because of legislation. In Asia, you have some seats of legislation or labeling you know going on, but it will still be the corporates driving this change for the next few years. You really have to look at the informal market versus the formal market because a lot of countries, the consumption is still happening in the informal market. So you if you look at the formal market, who are the ones that have the most sway over the supply chain? These are the ones, you know, that will drive the change. Hopefully, you know, they will be part of the movement as more and more companies, you know, want to include that in their CSR and more and more investors also pay attention to this issue. But it's um yeah, I think that would be what would drive the change in terms of volume.

James:

Yeah. So if I'm understanding you, it's something like implementation versus new commitments is maybe a less important question, but it's like you you find who in the formal market has you basically you just focus on the formal market and you try to get them first. And if they haven't committed, maybe to focus on getting them committed. And if they have committed, the focus should be on making sure they actually follow through. But the main thing is trying to get the formal market to move, and therefore it'll make it easier for everyone else, including the informal market. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Dawn Neo :

That's right. And if the products are available on the shelves and consumers are more exposed to it, then you know, naturally people become curious. And when it's available, the change will start.

James:

Now we have David Cole on the importance of incrementalism in past social movements. I want to maybe come back to something you said right in the very beginning in terms of the key takeaway. And then you you kind of kind of focus on the on the word like incremental reform and incremental progress. And you know, there's this tension in you know, both animal movement but many different movements, whether there's always the kind of like more ambitious idealists and people who are kind of you know plugging away at like quite maybe small-scale incremental reform. And I'm kind of curious why you think it's so valuable that actually people go after incremental reforms rather than maybe go for something much more ambitious and sweeping and have lower odds of succeeding, or use this to kind of shit the over to window.

David Cole :

You know, I think there's room for both in efforts to change the world to make it a better place. And I, you know, I also think that there are arguments that on certain kinds of issues, like in particular climate change, we don't have time for incrementalism. Uh you know, I'm I'm sympathetic to that uh uh notion that when you're facing, you know, something that is as as profoundly challenging as uh as uh climate change, we need to be acting now and we can be acting in major ways right now. But uh but I think you know, generally speaking, uh it's very difficult to change laws, it's very difficult to change culture, at least in in in my what I've looked at in terms of what has worked in changing people's minds and ultimately changing the legal structures that that reflect that is uh incremental reforms, small steps that uh make it easier to take the next step. And you know, that's that was certainly true with marriage equality, where the much of the work of the gay rights groups in the uh in the in the many decades, you know, up before up until w we we actually achieved marriage equality was uh convincing gay and lesbian couples in in ho hostile states not to go to court and make a claim that they had a right to marriage equality. Because the last thing uh we wanted was a uh set of uh precedents that said no, there's no such thing as a right to marriage equality, because that obviously is going to make it harder to uh to prevail in the long term. And so the the the strategy was really to try to focus on smaller small bore kinds of wins early on, extending uh family benefits from in from progressive employers and progressive cities to same-sex partners that would otherwise go to you know, married couples, uh changing family law so that it allowed for same-sex couples to uh adopt amending uh local anti-discrimination ordinances so that they would include sexual orientation as well as sex, race, religion, etc. Things like that. And then even when the movement moved to marriage itself, it sought to pursue it uh only in the most uh friendly uh environments. So, you know, the first case was filed in Vermont, then then in Massachusetts, then in Connecticut, California. By happenstance, these all happened to be uh fairly progressive states, blue states, where there was uh state Supreme Courts that folks thought might be amenable to recognizing the right. And and that was you know very, very much a uh a conscious effort. In fact, you know, ordinarily when you file a lawsuit on an issue like marriage equality, you would make both federal constitutional rights claims and state constitutional rights. Constitutional rights claims, but in those cases, they only made state constitutional rights claims because they knew that if they made a federal constitutional rights claim and one, it would go right to the Supreme Court and the of the United States, and they were not ready to go to the United States Supreme Court. They didn't feel that there was sufficient support for the idea to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. And if you limit your claim to a state law claim and you win on state law in Vermont or Massachusetts, the this U.S. Supreme Court has no authority to question the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision about what Massachusetts Constitution means. So it was very much this kind of incremental effort that in the end achieved a radical change and brought people along rather than trying to, you know, hammer home some radical result from the get-go. I think important lesson from the marriage equality campaign was the sort of the campaign outside of the courts for hearts and minds. And you know, and that really changed over time from a kind an effort that was a kind of like shock, awe, and shame. You know, how could you possibly not deny gay people the right to marry? If you're denying gay people the right to marry, you are a bigot, you are you are backwards, you you know, this is like uh being in favor of segregation, this is like uh being in favor of the internment of the j of the Japanese. And uh they uh ultimately uh realized through some serious self-study after losing a major proposition in California, proposition eight, which overturned a Supreme Court decision and took away marriage equality in California through a ballot initiative. A study of of sort of what how one can advocate effectively, they concluded that you know that kind of of advocacy is is not going to change people's minds. And instead they moved from this kind of shaming and you know we're right, you're wrong kind of view towards here's my journey view. And they developed a set of advertisements that in which the spokespeople were the more conservative the better, you know, Republican ministers, older people who would talk about how they had initially uh thought uh same-sex marriage was kind of a weird idea, but that you know, over time they had they had come to believe that it made sense. And it was usually by virtue of somebody in their family who they now knew was gay or lesbian, and and he or she should have the same right to commit you know to a life partnership as as I did with my wife of 50 years or whatever. And so instead of instead of hammering home to people, we're right, you're wrong, you should be ashamed of yourself, it was much more, look, I I I here's how I here's where I was. Here's what brought me around to the view that I have today. That proved a much more effective way of changing hearts and minds in the long run. And and I think that's a that's an important lesson for all social movements.

James:

One thing that I thought was particularly interesting on the NRA was what you said at the very beginning was it very much started out as a almost like a social scene, you know, that there was the gun clubs at like barbecues, you you go to I guess like the range together. So and then that kind of morphed into this like political thing. So I'm kind of curious, like, how important do you think that social and kind of community aspect was to, I guess, both like bring in members and then kind of like retain them and then get them engaged in political activism? Because like for me, that feels like you know, it's not clear that someone who's just there for the social scene also gets engaged in politics, but do you think that was a bit of like almost like a radicalization atmosphere, maybe in like a lightway happening in that community?

David Cole :

I think it was super important. I know the NRA folks who I interviewed for the book thought it was very important. I think it contributed to the sense of identity that people identified themselves as an NRA member. And and and you know, you vote your identity. So if you are if your identity is a Democrat, you vote the Democratic ticket. If your identity is a Republican, you vote the Republican ticket. If you identify as a gun rights person, you're gonna vote for gun rights. And and in some ways, I think you know, it's a little bit easier for them to develop that than for other kinds of more abstract rights, because you know, there's something there. There's an actual thing that you have that you know, in theory the the government might try to take away. And it is the kind of thing where you know people are going to come together who are not necessarily sort of political activists, just like to hunt, like to shoot, and like to hang out with like-minded people, and then you you know you build a kind of collective consciousness and identity that way. Much harder, say, for you know, if you're a First Amendment person, like what is the, you know, or a privacy person. There isn't a thing there. There's not a you know, a reason to have a barbecue about free speech or privacy or or you know, or probably animal rights, right? Definitely not for animal rights. And and and and so it's so I think that's a that's a a benefit they had. But I think the sort of more sort of the sort of more generalizable point is to the extent that you can get people to sort of identify themselves as a part of their identity, is I am uh against guns or I am for guns. And that's a really important thing for me. The more likely they're gonna be engaged on the issue, vote on the issue, be willing to, you know donate on the issue. I actually think that vegetarianism is a could be a sort of political tool for the animal rights movements in a in a in a way, right? Because it it means once once someone like I did read read a read a book like Eating Animals and understand how horrific factory farming is, and then you change who you are because of that, it seems to me, you know, that you are more likely to be active and engaged on those uh on those issues. Not necessarily, but it is part of like you know, it's part of who you are in a way that believing in free speech or believing in privacy is generally not.

David Coman-Hidy :

You've hit upon like several of the most fiendish problems in the animal rights movement that James and I and our friends discuss constantly. This issue of identity is incredibly critical, but also the lack of an organic community. You know, we don't have like the organic gay and lesbian community forming in cities, we don't have the gun clubs, we don't have, you know, a particular church we're associated with. How much do we invest in creating that kind of social fabric out of thin air? Is that even possible? Yeah. The other thing I'm I'm curious to get your thoughts on related to what you just said about this issue of identity, one of the things that I feel like we have in common with the NRA or or the gun rights movement, is we have very high intensity of preference activists whose identity like current people in the animal rights movement are single issue people and they're very intense and it is their life's cause in a way that is, I think, very few movements can claim actually that the level of intensity of preference among our are core cadre. But there's huge trade-offs here in that like even something like vegetarianism, to say like this is kind of the price of entry to be part of the team and to be like in the interior of the movement, is a very high cost for most people. And one thing we benefit from that's probably a little bit different than a lot of like, especially in the early years of organizing for the NRA, is a lot of people are just very sympathetic to our cause. So I think even most people, if they just don't see it as possible to become vegetarian, are very likely to vote in favor of banning battery cages for egg-laying hands, or just would generally agree with any statement you made, like what you just said, factory farming is you know unbelievably cruel. It's a terrible, terrible thing we're doing to animals. Virtually everyone agrees with us, right? Like they can barely watch the footage from these fossils. So I wonder to what de like a part of me is it really sympathizes what you just said. Like, yeah, like becoming vegetarian and changing yourself, getting this identity, like this is so strong in political organizing and like creating this latent group of people we can activate with this identity. But on the other hand, it's highly exclusionary. And there's this tension of like how how much do we broaden the tent with these with people where it's like a very low salience issue, but where they agree with us. Do you have any thoughts on how we should consider that trade-off or what you've seen work for the NRA or other movements?

David Cole :

I think what worked for the marriage equality folks for gay rights was to, you know, move beyond the gay community itself, right? They had to move beyond the gay community itself because that was a relatively small percentage of the population. You know, and but they were able to do that by coming out, by sort of disclosing to the people they knew and loved who they were, in ways that had not been done, you know, for first for for decades, you know, centuries, I suppose. Those ties then made it more difficult for people to demonize and and more likely that people would be sympathetic to their cause, even if they weren't didn't have that identity. I'm a vegetarian, but I'm also kind of a I don't want to impose it on other people. So people ask me, yeah, I'm vegetarian, why? I'll tell them why. But I also you know totally recognize that you know not everyone will make that choice. And sometimes I felt like when other people sort of announce their vegetarianism, it can be in a way that sort of says, well, if you're not a vegetarian, you're a bad person. And that that doesn't work very well in terms of bringing people along and building a broader tent. So I do think there's a uh you know a real need obviously to build a broader tent. I think you you know the animal rights movement has a two significant challenges. One is that there's no no human beings' self-interest is at stake, or at least not in any not in an obvious way, self-interest at stake, and that's a very powerful motivator. And the other is that at least in some measures, you're asking people to sacrifice for somebody else. That's the same kind of problem that climate change has, where you're asking you know, people are asking us now to sacrifice for future generations, and that's people don't want to do that, or they're reluctant to do that. I don't know. I feel like vegetarianism is growing, to be sure, that there's sort of more and more consciousness about factory farming. If you can get this get the sort of question before folks who could be against treating animals more more, you know, humanely. You have both some serious challenges and you have you know this this real benefit that that you know at the end of the day what you're fighting against is really, really uh offensive to many, many people. And so, but for the agriculture lobby and the fact that our economy depends on it, you know, you'd have a you'd have any easy sailing.

James:

Next, Carly Betts on moving past good cop and bad cop binaries in campaigning.

Carley Betts :

Something we've been thinking about in the OWA and that I've been having some interesting discussions with people about is shifting away from the binary, good cop, bad cop approach. And I want to say this model works well at times. It definitely does, but I think it has its limitations. There are some groups out there doing good cop or bad cop work exclusively with a lot of success. But I think in some cases, we need to reframe things and recognize that it's beneficial to be adaptable and responsive to the unique country and situation that we're in to keep momentum going. How this might play out is like instead of me thinking, okay, I'm a good cop, that's an identity, I instead view myself as a very adaptable, creative force of animals with like a very big box of tactics that I can pull from according to the campaign. So I might try to be a good cop, but if that doesn't, like if that doesn't work, I'll abandon it and I'll instead write a report comparing companies that are fulfilled versus those that haven't. Or if that doesn't work, I'll launch an online petition. If that doesn't work, I'll protest. If that doesn't work, I'll flood their social media or reach out to their board members. I think this adaptability and creativity and pushing ourselves as far as we can safely go without doing anything that's illegal is far more likely to succeed than really having a strong identity as either like I'm a good cop at all at all costs or I'm a bad cop, and that's a role that I play.

James:

I've kind of heard people say things like, you know, it it takes a long time to build trust and you can live, but you lose it very quickly. So for me, I it almost it only ratchets kind of one way, right? I can't imagine you you start very collaborative, then you end up being like applying loads of pressure and going to one of these like a bad cop ends and then kind of going back so easily. Like do you get the sense actually you can go back and forth, or it's actually a bit harder to go back towards a good cop approach?

Carley Betts :

Yeah, I think it it definitely is hard. And in some cases, it might be that you can never go back to being a good cop. You could destroy a relationship overnight that you've taken a year or two to build. And I'm not saying that we should do that easily, but what I am saying in light of my previous answer, it's like, what is the value in working with a company for two or three years, holding their hand to help them supply cage-free eggs and really not seeing any traction and like having a response to an email once a month, but then really not taking you seriously? Like, I don't think that we should be playing the role of holding companies' hands and that middle person connecting them with the cage-free suppliers. I believe we should be playing the role of powerful organizations, mighty, like the OWA, we're mighty when we come together with campaign threats and willing to escalate to the point that companies will do what we tell them to. And I know I make it sound easy, I totally get it's not easy, but I think if you've been a good cop for one, two, three years and you're not seeing traction, I just think you need to adapt and be willing to risk things.

Amy :

So, are you saying it only works in that way then? So you're actually talking about an escalation from a good cop role to a bad cop role, but not the other way, because I have been a part of campaigns like at the Humane League where we're doing bad cop pressure campaigns and nothing's happening. So it's kind of the same. It's like we're not seeing progress on the bad cop side either. And so are you suggesting that they should abandon like bad cop tactics and maybe try a bit of hand holding if that's going to get us? Like, does that sense of flexibility and creativity work both ways?

Carley Betts :

I get that it's hard to switch identities, but it's about being creative and being willing to do so when the impact feels worthwhile because honestly, we are so limited in our resources. I just don't see the value in two or three years of having positive relationships with companies that are causing a lot of animal suffering and looking like they're not willing to change it. I just I don't see the value in that. So I think being creative and willing to damage relationships is potentially worthwhile, but obviously think about pros and cons in a like a very deep way.

James:

Yeah, yeah. I I mean, I I have heard this kind of comment before. It's like, you know, it's actually the easiest thing for the companies to do to like placate us is to like send this email once a month, being like, hey, you know, we're like, we're working on it, it's very hard, we need some more time. It's like all these supply chain challenges, XYZ. And then, you know, you can be like, you're like, you know, fair enough. Okay, I'll give you some more time. And then this drags on for a while. And I I totally agree that this should only happen for so long before we say, I think we're getting, you know, led down some uh like false path and you know, take action.

Carley Betts :

And it's like a bit back to basics, but sometimes I just like to think like, what would chickens tell me to do? What would laying hens tell me to do in this situation? Would they be like, yeah, like stay close to them for another year or two? I I think they'd be like, unleash all hell if you can. And like I think you need to be willing to do that, but in a smart way, like I said, that keeps safety in mind, that keeps legalities in mind. Um so yeah, sometimes I like to take it back to basics and think, what would the animals tell me to do?

David Coman-Hidy :

Now, Dave Coman Heidi on the importance of political advocacy, the growing emphasis on policy advocacy in the movement. You know, the corporate campaigns have driven really major wins over the last decade and are still a major focus in terms of where the most amount of money and advocate time is going. But I do think that there's been a rising recognition, especially in the last two years, that long-term change and kind of a next phase of the movement is going to require serious engagement with legislative and regulatory systems and working with administrations like in the US. In the EU, you know, the end the cage-age age campaign did not secure the final win, but it did demonstrate really widespread public support and some political support for stronger animal welfare laws. And I think a lot of groups in the EU now in the last two years are shifting focus to national level policy. It's kind of a clearer path forward. I think this is encouraging not only because these national policies can secure really lasting protections, but they provide a very strong unifying goal for advocacy groups beyond the corporate campaigns, aiming for that larger level EU change. And in the US, you know, there isn't an equivalent of this kind of like national level salad initiative policy. But what we are seeing is more exciting work happening than before, particularly around alternative proteins, I think is probably where the most exciting direct political advocacy is happening. There's a lot of increasing momentum behind unlocking public funding for meat alternatives. There's new initiative to bring in like really talented advocates in the space, either early or mid-career. I think government investment has been like such a major driver in technology in the past that this seems like a really great next strategic step. And then on the animal welfare side, we've seen more stuff happening at the city and state level. I think there's been some experiments with policy. Results have been pretty mixed. I think like the local factory farm bands, for example, did not succeed, which raises important strategic questions, but I do agree with like the general direction of experimentation and policy that the movement is taking. And I think that like growing fluency among advocates and among donors in that world is really positive. So overall, this is something I think is really good. It's been a pretty big change, I would say, from two years ago.

Amy :

Yeah. Do you feel like that was always on the cards? I remember when we working in corporate relations, it was kind of a part of the strategy to have enough commitments to feel as though there was enough momentum to then start tackling the the issue of the policy change because we've kind of built up the momentum and And it kind of dissolved the likelihood of pushback from industry on certain reforms. Do you feel as though it's a it's just been like a really great time, or has there been something else that's c that's been like the catalyst for the increase in policy work?

David Coman-Hidy :

I think it's probably just a matter of a few people having positive experiences, experimenting with lobbying or the excitement that we saw around the EU policy probably put something in the water. But I don't think it was always going to happen. I mean two years ago, I think it would have been a lot easier to fundraise for something like direct individual vegan advocacy than it would be for like a new policy or lobbying initiative. I don't know if that's the case today. I think it's been a lot of smart people talking about this for a number of years, some experiments being had. I think some of the funders in the animal space getting involved in political advocacy and building relationships with lawmakers has probably also been really important, getting that kind of hand-on experience and seeing what access can get you in terms of just like raising the salience of our issue among lawmakers. So I think that's probably been a big factor. But we're a small enough world that it's really just like, you know, a dozen people talking about it and trying things out. Can we really alter the direction of things?

Speaker 7:

Yeah, yeah, sure.

James:

Kylie Nasarek on progress for shrimps, obviously the most important topic in this podcast.

Speaker 7:

One of the most remarkable things I've seen happen is just how much progress we made on helping some of the most numerous but like overlooked animals. Well, maybe because of this podcast, we won't be super surprised if I mean shrimp. Um, but when we kind of think about the early 2021, there was essentially like no organizations focusing on those animals. And in 2024, we got to the point where over 2.5 billion shrimps are getting their welfare improved through various effective interventions. And I think this is just like really speaks to how quickly we can move from almost no attention to an issue to like concrete improvements in welfare of billions of animals. And yeah, and I think just sort of like how effective advocacy very quickly can meaningful, create meaningful change. I think this is just like one of the most remarkable things about this movement.

Amy :

Do you think it's like a prioritization thing? Because maybe somebody else, you know, say that shrimp hadn't been looked at by charity entrepreneurship as it was at the time. Do you think it's about finding that really specific way in which we can support that animal? Because perhaps maybe one of the advocacy groups would have thought, oh, we should start talking to the public about shrimp, but I don't think we'd have the same figures to talk about welfare improvements as we would without being like really narrowly focused on their approach. Do you think that's played a part in the success?

Speaker 7:

Sure. I think like a super crucial thing is just having identify intervention.work. And I think that just really builds a momentum for a given campaign and for a given species. Um, because of course it's not just enough to want to help the most numerous animals, but it's also about that. Can we actually do something about it? And because relatively quickly, from Welfare Project, we're able to identify this something that can be done, and it turns out it is working. I think that's kind of what it really helps to build the momentum for to work on the species. So I think this is in a way like a super crucial element of that.

James:

It's not just now one organization, like you said, maybe Shrimp Welfare Project is taking one approach working quite collaboratively with with retailers and other producers. And there's people who are working with certifiers, people who are campaigning against companies. So yeah, I guess it in a few years it's gone from basically no one to actually having like a small ecosystem of kind of different actors all playing to their strengths, which I think is yeah, particularly exciting.

Speaker 7:

And as you're saying, kind of even actors from outside, it's not just advocates pushing for it, it's also folks who are in from an industry, producers, let's say, who are beginning to understand this actually could be aligned with what they want to do as well, and really start kind of actively seek opportunities for improving like welfare of shrimps that they're kind of farming as well, which I think is also like a very encouraging sign. It's not that we are just fighting, you know, to push for it, but there is actual interest that we can, you know, we can harvest.

Amy :

Do you think that's set a kind of a progression or maybe starting to be a bit of a status quo of trying to push the boundaries of what that intervention actually is as well? Because for me, the shrimp welfare project was one of the first where it felt really novel in terms of their approach, actually like buying the stunners. I think that it was quite controversial at the time. Do you think it is like also pushing us when we're going to these numerous species and having to deal with more complex topics? Is it also kind of pushing us to be a bit more adventurous in our advocacy?

Speaker 7:

To some extent, like uh animal advocacy movement have been the victim of its own success because corporate campaigns for like Keeb worked so, so well. It would be easy for us to keep thinking that actually the best way to bring change in the future is through the same roads as we've been having for that. And I think corporate campaigns will be absolute crucial ways to kind of bring in this change, but it doesn't have to be the only one. And I think it would be very easy for us to just you know stick with this because we know it works. But I think this there is this need for like this degree of experimentation of trying out different approaches and methods, perhaps in the more fringier areas or perhaps in like smaller scales first, and kind of proving that they can be done. And when that's this kind of kind of happening, then scaling up to other species, other work, other perhaps other geographies if that if it is kind of you know applicable to in other regions as well. So, yeah, I think kind of to some extent it does tell us something that work that is different to the things we've been doing in the past can still be very effective. Of course, there's always kind of you know, some things will work out, some things will not, and it's just so much easier to talk about the things that have worked out than talk about the things that just maybe didn't go so well. But I think there's so much learning and value from those experiments that didn't work out. And it doesn't mean that they were not valuable, it just means that, you know, in a sense, knowing that something doesn't work perhaps is equally important to knowing that something is working. I would worry about the future where we would only kind of stick to one way to try to bring in change. Because yeah, maybe one day we might wake up and figure out, well, this thing we've been working on for years actually might not work in this particular context or this particular species. And then in a way, we might start have to work in from there, but that will already cause some delay. So I'm happy for part of the movement to kind of experiment on different approaches as well. And I think, as you're saying, I think this was just like a what Shrimp Real Shrimp Wolfrew project did was a really nice case of what could be the results uh of those experiments.

James:

Big time. I I mean it's hard to think of a bigger success story than like you said, two and a half billion shrimp having a better life uh each year as well that work. So yeah, so yeah, it's it's pretty pretty impressive.