Activists and celebrities joined together in a large march and protest last Friday against the Korean summer season of dog eating called ‘Boknal’.

I was delighted to join my fellow wildlife presenter Nigel Marven, along with Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust, and Band Besureis, to stand in solidarity for dogs worldwide outside the doors of the Korean Embassy, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace and the Queen’s famous corgis.

Well over 100 protesters and activists lent their impassioned voices to this demo, which followed on from the Yulin demonstration outside the Chinese embassy two weeks before.

Bok-Nal, which literally translates as ‘Dog Days’, is a three-week Korean holiday marking the height of the summer growing season. It is traditionally the hottest time of the year and in a bid to beat the summer heat, many Koreans will consume ‘traditional’ soups or tonics made of dog meat.

The meat is believed to have magical restorative powers, increasing overall health and fitness, as well as the powers to ‘cool the blood’. Of course no such magical health benefits have been proven to exist, and probably the only way the soups combat dehydration is because of their water content.

Torture and deprivation from the moment of birth

Yet dog meat consumption increases considerably during this period, focusing in on three days in particular. The event is hosted on the first day July 19th called Cho Bok translated as ‘first summer’ continuing through to Joong Bok, ‘mid-summer’, on the 29th of July and Mal Bok, ‘end of summer’, on August 8th, lasting around three and a half weeks.

South Korea has the world’s 14th largest economy yet this is also a country where an estimated 2.5 million dogs and thousands of cats are slaughtered and eaten each year. Forced to endure deprivation and unimaginable torture from the moment they are born until the day they are slaughtered, dogs are imprisoned in cramped, filthy, raised, wire, cages all their lives with no protection from extreme weather.

They have no exercise, companionship or medical care, and they never feel the ground beneath their feet. Their eardrums are often burst to prevent them from barking. In broad daylight, often in front of other live dogs, they are electrocuted, hanged, beaten, have their throats slashed, boiled or burnt to death.

This is a profit-driven, tax free, unregulated industry whose customers believe that that the more a dog suffers in its death, the better its meat. This is why so many dogs are sadistically made to experience extreme fear and suffering prior to slaughter. Cats are frequently boiled alive to make health tonics, too.

Younger generation shuns a cruel, insanitary, repulsive ‘tradition’

The demand is so high in South Korea that 20% of the dogs eaten are now imported from China. Unlike China, most of the dogs are farmed and these same dogs are pumped full of antibiotics and medicines – it is the only way to keep them alive and free from disease, because of the terrible conditions they live in.

Some people believe a solution to the social, environmental, and health problems of the illegal dog meat industry is to legalise it. However, legalisation of dog eating will do nothing to stop the cruelty. If condoned by the government, it would only become more widespread and open. And it would still be practically impossible to police. Dog farmers will not want extra social responsibilities, rules and regulations, and costs. It will be cheaper for many to continue to farm illegally without restrictions.

Just this week, it was announced that South Korea’s longest running dog meat restaurant of 33 years is finally closing its doors due to demand for dog meat being in decline.

“Most young people eat chicken soup on a dog day and even those who eat dog tend to refrain from talking about it openly”, says Moon Jaesuk, a 32-year-old researcher. “Young South Koreans grow up watching TV shows about raising puppies and other pets, which sapped appetite for dog meat.”

Many animal rescue charities are actively operating out in South Korean, The Humane Society International has rescued 495 dogs this year and closed at least 5 slaughterhouses. Other local famous rescuers, including a local lady called Nami Kim works hard on a daily basis trying to change beliefs and minds in her home country, as well as trying to save as many dogs that she is able.

UK Government Petition: ‘Urge the South Korean Government to end the brutal dog meat trade‘.

Anneka Svenska is a conservationist & broadcaster who specialises in films covering serious wildlife crime, wildlife & environmental conservation and education surrounding misunderstood apex predators.

To find out more about the Dog Meat Trade, charities and what you can do, please visit: dogsandcatsoffthemenu.com

Hidden in the Chilcot report: a previously classified Ministry of Defence (MoD) paper setting out the UK Government’s thinking on depleted uranium (DU) munitions.

In it, the clearance of unexploded ordnance and DU is considered and the MoD argues that it has: ” … no long-term legal responsibility to clean up DU from Iraq”.

Instead it proposes that surface lying fragments of DU only be removed on “an opportunity basis” – i.e. if they come across them in the course of other operations.

In other words, the UK’s stance is that chemically toxic and radioactive DU ‘ash’ from spent munitions is strictly the problem of the country in which the munitions were used, in this case Iraq – and that the UK, which fired the DU shells, has no formal responsibility of cleaning up the mess.

The question is examined in Section 10-1 of the Chilcot inquiry which briefly considers DU in the context of the UK’s obligations as an occupying power. The MoD had submitted the paper to the then newly established Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation.

Unlike landmines and cluster munitions, there is no treaty to ensure that affected countries receive international assistance or are themselves obligated to protect their own people. Nor is anyone required to record the impact of the weapons on individuals and communities.

Vehicles contaminated by DU – for example destroyed tanks, armoured personnel carriers – pose a particular risk to civilians, both to workers in the scrap metal industry and to children who may play on them. Levels of contamination can be high and, because the interiors are not exposed to the elements, DU may remain in the vehicles for long periods.

Just how high these levels can be was a question of scientific interest to the MoD at the time and, while tanks suspected of being struck by DU would be marked, this would be “…pending examination by an MoD-led team scientific team for research purposes.” The MoD gave no guarantees that vehicles identified as contaminated would be dealt with appropriately.

DU in the UN General Assembly this October

This October, governments at the United Nations General Assembly will be debating a sixth resolution on DU weapons.

Thanks to the experiences of Iraq – who in 2014 called for assistance from the international community in dealing with contamination, and for a global ban on DU weapons – attention is increasingly being focused on this lack of obligations on nations that use DU weapons to clean up the areas they contaminate.

These same governments are often extremely conscious of the financial and technical burden of clearance as they have domestic firing ranges that are contaminated. Earlier this year, the US Army lost a long-running battle with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over legacy DU contamination at 15 of its facilities. Meanwhile in the UK, the Scottish government continues to oppose further test firing into the Solway Firth.

The cost and complexity of dealing with DU contamination at home is not the only issue focusing minds on how governments and their militaries should be obliged to address DU following its use in conflicts. New research that has revealed the presence of DU in people 30 years after they were exposed is also showing how urine testing could identify civilians affected by the UK and US’s use of DU in Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

Between 1958 and 1982, Colonie, a suburb of Albany, New York was home to National Lead Industries (NLI), a factory that manufactured products containing DU. The plant made penetrators for DU munitions, counterweights for aircraft and vehicles, and shielding for medical devices.

Lax controls on the facility meant that waste was burnt in a furnace on site, which routinely operated without filtration controls. Over the period, it is believed that more than 5,000kg of DU oxide escaped the facility in the form of micron-sized particles, to be dispersed in a plume over the surrounding community, as well as contaminating the factory itself.

For eight of those years, NLI also processed enriched uranium from fuel for experimental reactors.

Persistent US contamination akin to that in conflict zones

If the uncontrolled dispersal of DU particles into residential areas sounds familiar, it should, and the studies from Colonie have been viewed by some as analogous to the use of DU weapons in conflict settings.

Research into the shape and composition of the Colonie particles has demonstrated that they are similar to those produced by DU weapons when they hit hard targets. A UK study published in 2014 agreed that these kinds of particles are persistent in the environment, in that case surviving unaltered for 30 years in the wet conditions of a firing range in southern Scotland.

That the contamination occurred in the US itself should in theory have made the environmental and health monitoring studies that followed easier to undertake than would be the case a post-conflict setting.

However this would prove not to be the case, largely thanks to the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) – the government public health body dealing with exposures to hazardous substances. The local community would have to fight tooth and nail for recognition and research into the risks posed by the site following its closure, including collecting evidence from their friends and neighbours on the rates of health problems, which included rare cancers and immune disorders.

In 2007, and thanks to a campaign from the community that had lasted 25 years, the results of a study combining forensic environmental studies with urine analysis were published, garnering international media coverage.

The study was led by Professor Randall Parrish, then of Leicester University in the UK. All five of the former workers that they tested revealed uranium in their bodies 23 years after production had ceased, meanwhile 20% of the residents they tested were also excreting DU and, although the human sample size was small, their environmental analysis also revealed the presence of DU in homes and gardens at concentrations exceeding US intervention levels.

The publication of the results coincided with the conclusion of the main remediation programme at the NLI, which was managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers after the site was transferred to the government for a token $10. The project cost $190m, involved the removal of 150,000 tons of uranium, thorium and lead contaminated soil and debris, extracted from depths of up to 40ft, which was then sent 2,000 miles by rail to an underground radioactive waste facility in the Rockies.

Failings in the official response delayed health research

Prior to the remediation work, and Parrish and colleagues’ research, an initial study by the ATSDR had already concluded that there was a real and significant health risk to the public from past DU emissions from the plant. However it had decided not to pursue any environmental surveying or health surveillance activities.

The ATSDR had been coming under pressure over the quality and independence of its work for many years and in 2009, Randall Parrish and other experts would provide evidence to a congressional committee on the ATSDR’s conduct in relation to the Colonie case. In his testimony, Parrish argued that “In most respects other than providing information on toxins, [the ATSDR report] failed to deliver its remit for the Colonie site.”

This April, a follow-up study on exposure rates among workers and residents was finally published. It had a larger sample size than Parrish’s 2007 study, analysing the urine of 32 former workers and 99 residents. For the workers, 84% showed DU exposure, with a further 9% showing exposure to both DU and enriched uranium, whereas just 8% of the 99 residents tested were excreting DU.

One of the arguments used by the ATSDR when it had failed to act on community concerns was that too much time had passed for DU to be detected. Parrish’s 2007 study was the first to show that DU was still detectable after 20 years. The latest study shows that even after 30 years it is still possible to detect the signs of DU exposure.

Just as important are the techniques they used, which can differentiate between the different isotopes of uranium, provide valuable clues to the original source of the exposure – although ascertaining how much people have been exposed to remains difficult.

Persistent particles and pernicious politics

The refusal of the ATSDR to act in the interest of the local community in the Colonie case has parallels with the behaviour of the governments who employ DU weapons in conflicts.

This is often characterised by a lack of transparency over where the weapons are fired, what they are fired at and in the quantities used. This is data that is crucial for not only determining the risk to civilians from the use of the weapons but also to facilitate the management of contamination after conflicts. It is therefore no coincidence that these themes come up time and again in United Nations’ resolutions.

There has also been, and continues to be, a studied disinterest on behalf of the DU weapon users in supporting civilian exposure studies of the kind seen in Colonie. They argue that assessing harm, and the costly and technically challenging task of clearance, is the sole responsibility of the affected state – arguments they also used to make for land mines and cluster bombs.

When the United Nations last discussed DU two years ago, 150 governments recognised the need for states to provide assistance to countries like Iraq. This October, our Coalition will add our voice to those of the states affected by DU weapons in calling for an end to the use of DU weapons and for the users to finally accept responsibility for their legacy.

Colonie eventually got its exposure studies and remediation, Iraq is still waiting. 

Doug Weir is the Coordinator of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), which campaigns for a ban on the use of uranium in all conventional weapons and for monitoring, health care, compensation and environmental remediation for communities affected by their use. @ICBUW

Australias’ re-elected Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has scraped victory with a tiny majority that will make delivery on the health of the Reef more difficult. Turnbull will need support from independent MP’s, having rejected a deal with the Australian Green Party.

Independent Bob Katter’s constituency of Kennedy borders nearly 200 miles of the Great Barrier Reef, and he’s been openly critical of the government’s record on Climate Change and the Reef saying “the Government with their self-righteous hypocrisy of how they are saving the planet and the Great Barrier Reef…

“Every single commentator from David Attenborough down has attributed coral bleaching to global warming, and Australia has done absolutely nothing about its CO2 obligations.”  The Kennedy coastline is some of the hardest hit in the latest wave of coral bleaching.

A Third Wave of Coral Bleaching

The Great Barrier Reef took centre stage early in the election campaign when research showed that 93% of the Reef is dead or dying from bleaching. Coral bleaching happens when increasing ocean temperatures from global warming forces corals to eject zooxanthellae[i] algae. Corals need the algae to help photosynthesize and reproduce. Without photosynthesizing the corals turn white, and eventually die.

Scientists liken the phenomenon to ten cyclones slamming one after another and another into the corals. Aerial and underwater surveys found that 81% of the northern section is severely bleached with just one percent still intact. The central section fairs a little better, with 33% of the corals severely bleached, and 10 percent escaping. Marine scientists claimed that without drastic action on climate change, there will be more intensive waves of bleaching along the length of the Reef. 

Eliminating Risk by Removing the Facts.