Update January 2026
Since our last blog, Vetwork UK has been busy.
Trustee Susi Arnott asks 'What's Science Outreach For?' and explains what she has been up to and why in this must-watch presentation:
https://www.susiarnott.co.uk/home/the-climate-emergency/whats-science-outreach-for/
Susi's blog photo 'Green Mountains' shows green pastures of commuting diatoms appearing as if by magic over the micro-landscapes of mudflats, something they do every receding tide, to disappear down into the mud again just before they are hit by the next rising tide, a dance to the rhythm of the moon repeated every single tide since commuting diatoms first evolved hundreds of millions of years ago. And are likely to still be doing so long after humans have gone.
We sponsored Dr Bojia Duguma, President of the Ethiopian Veterinary Association, to attend the FAO 2025 Global Conference on Sustainable Livestock Transformation: Fostering Change, Scaling Innovations, Driving Solutions at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy, 29 September – 1 October 2025
where he presented a ‘Whole Community-One Welfare Approach: Scaling One Health Solutions through working Animals’ in the Innovations themed session.
He highlighted that working animals will continue to play an essential role in sustainable livestock transformation for the foreseeable future but remain a blind spot in modern development policy. Yet they face a double burden: the physical load they carry, and the indirect weight of poverty, conflict, climate shocks, and scarce access to services. However, using a whole community approach provides a way forward and has been shown to measurably improve working animal welfare while also benefitting people and the environment.
Vetwork UK Trustee Stephen Blakeway funded himself to join Bojia at the same conference for much fruitful discussion and planning. Stephen presented twice at the new 'Speakers Corner', continuing the theme of One Welfare Transformation and highlighting that One Welfare requires us to extend our working collaborations outside our professional disciplines to include more multi-disciplinary partners: ecologists and environmental scientists, for example, are essential if we are to monitor and mitigate our impact on biodiversity and climate.
The conference displayed the whole spectrum of animal agriculture, including government and UN level politics, macro and micro economics, and a wide diversity of approaches to husbanding animals. An eye opener and inevitably both positive and negative developments.
Those of us championing a One Welfare vision of animal husbandry scaling back to restore animal and environmental health and welfare have a huge task as many still seem to believe technology will enable endlessly elastic growth in the face of human greed for yet more meat and milk and other animal products.
Trustee Alex Briault continues to analyse and engage on energy as the underlying metric in all of this and the concept of personal energy quotas as a means to ensure we stay within the boundaries of planetary sustainability.
Trustee Sarah Morgan works locally on sustainability in her work as a practicing veterinary surgeon and in her role as a Town Councillor in Norfolk.
