Examining Sustainability: A Report on the Live Animal Export Campaign

This research report delves into the contentious issue of live animal exports from Australia, highlighting the economic benefits for exporters against the significant suffering endured by the animals during transportation. The report emphasizes that while live export constitutes a small fraction of Australia's total export value, the ethical implications and animal cruelty have fueled the stopLiveExport campaign since 2008. The campaign, involving diverse community members, employs various strategies, including protests and awareness events, to advocate for an end to live animal exports. The report further details the campaign's objectives, its success in establishing credibility as an activist movement, and the positive governmental responses achieved through persistent advocacy and public awareness initiatives. The study references various sources to support its claims regarding animal welfare concerns, economic factors, and the campaign's impact.

Running head: SUSTAINABILTY
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Student’s Name
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Author’s Note

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Executive Summary
This research study have focused on the issue of live export of animals from Australia. It is
evident that the exporters get much more value against live cattle. However the export
volume accounts for a minor percentage of sales volume of export trade of Australia and the
painfulness that the animas ensure as an outcome of transportation is immense. As an
outcome, the stopLiveExport campaign have been launched and since 2008 the organisation
have been very passionate attempting to prevent the export. In this context, people from
various communities and social strata have participated in the campaign. Through various
sarcastic and comedy based activities this organisation also organises road shows as other
campaign movements like candle marches and silent walks as protest. The positive responses
from the end of the government is a great and consolidated achievement for the company.

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Table of Contents
1. Background to the Issues (600 words)...................................................................................4
a. identifying the problems/issues the campaign aims to address..........................................4
b. Defining the campaign goals/objectives.............................................................................4
c. How did the campaign establish credibility as an activist?................................................5
Reference List............................................................................................................................7

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1. Background to the Issues (600 words)
a. identifying the problems/issues the campaign aims to address
One among the largest exporters of live sheep as well as cattle along with others like
live goats is Australia. The country has been the major exporter of live cattle to other
countries since the 1970. The Middle East has been its major importer. In this context, Lee,
Finnoff and Daszak(2017), have highlighted that in spite of the fact that this industry of live
export in Australia makes up for about $ 1 billion AUD, yet this is only 0.5% of the net
export value of Australia (Stopliveexports.org2018). However, of these cattle were being
utilised for chilled meat exporting, which is a much more prosperous industry, there could
have been more employment opportunities generated.
As the name suggests, the campaign addresses issues of animal cruelty during
transport from one country to another. Within these issues, one is campaign against the throat
slitting of live animals for exporting into another country. While preparing for the campaign,
the organizers found that more than 70% of the animals’ throats are cut before exporting for
meat consumption from Australia while alive and fully conscious.
Another important issue is that the sea voyages that the cattle have to overcome are
extensively long and statistics say that over 2.5 million cattle have died on board within the
last 30 years (Pendergrast 2015). The reasons of death in most of those cases are inanition or
starvation. Respiratory illness, heat stress or even salmonellosis can also be the cause of death
The most shocking issue is that most of the animals on board die on pens and in many
instances; it is a long and painful death.
b. Defining the campaign goals/objectives

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The Stop Live Exports campaign has a commitment to bring an end to the exporting
of the live animals to the other countries for the purpose of slaughter. This organisation
started active campaigning to highlight the issues since 2008. There is a wide range of people
from various who are supporting or are directly involved with the campaigns of the
StopLiveExports organisation. They include the local who are disgusted with the noise and
the distressed condition of the animals. Other than that, there are former meat workers who
are now jobless owing to the emergence of the industry of the live export campaign. People
who are genuinely concerned about welfare of the animals are also among the group of
supporters (Lindsay 2018). The campaigns of the organisation are also partially supported by
the community leaders who suppose that trade in chilled is a much more prospective
campaign than the affair of live exports (Sinclair et al. 2018). Lastly, the farmers who are
concerned about the animals are also part of the group of supporters.
The mutually common goal of the campaign is ending the export of live animals for
any business context, completely. The organisation is campaigning in collaboration with
Katrina Love as well as another welfare committee. The campaigns involve strategic actions
like taking up various strategic steps like conducting road shows for saving the cattle by
culling them in Australia and then exporting the processed meats (Ryan 2017). They have
send repeated petitions to the government of Australia also, highlighting what sort of issues
the animals have to go through whole they are exported live.
c. How did the campaign establish credibility as an activist?
Active and highly supported campaigns have been the central key to the success of the
organisation. The organisation arranges events like the one that is supposed to be organised
on the 7th October of 2018. This is a silent campaign, where people are supposed to wear T-
shirts highlighting their professions and the fact that they still oppose the act of live animal

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exports. This organisation has registered its name in the book of record for arranging the most
vibrant campaigns for such a noble cause. The campaign also receives fund from the UN
(Stopliveexports.org2018). The campaigns have been conducted to other countries also in
order to make the governments of the other countries aware that how much the pain the cattle
have to endure. It is estimated, as noticed by Munro (2015), that owing to this organisations
and campaign from other campaigners, the Australian government has decided that from the
next year onwards they would set a new limit of the number of head of cattle that can be
exported from Australia by ships.

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Reference List
Lee, K.D., Finnoff, D. and Daszak, P., 2017. Impacts of Pathogen Introduction Risk on
Importer Behavior and Gains from Trade in the Livestock Industry. EcoHealth, pp.1-10.
Munro, L., 2015. The live animal export controversy in Australia: a moral crusade made for
the mass media. Social Movement Studies, 14(2), pp.214-229.
Pendergrast, N., 2015. Live animal export, humane slaughter and media hegemony. Animal
Studies Journal, 4(1), pp.99-125.
Ryan, E., 2017. A Tale of Three Cities: A Comparative Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of
the 2011 Live Cattle Export Suspension. GEOView: Online Undergraduate Review of
Geography and Environmental Studies.
Sinclair, M., Derkley, T., Fryer, C. and Phillips, C., 2018. Australian public opinions
regarding the live export trade before and after an animal welfare media
exposé. Animals, 8(7), p.106.
Lindsay, S., 2018. The conservative case against live animal exports. Quadrant, 62(6), p.28.
Stopliveexports.org (2018). About Us. Available at: https://www.stopliveexports.org/
[Accessed: 06th October 2018]