I think Councils need to take the lead on how ratepayers care for their domestic animals and at the same time care for the native animals in the environment. For instance, the Fremantle Council where I live has a responsible pet ownership website outlining pet owners’ responsibilities and the penalties for not complying with the laws. The Council also has twelve cat prohibited areas to protect wildlife.

Humans and nonhumans need to be given equal consideration in terms of their interests. However, as some are more vulnerable critters, for example, small mammals, their interests need to be given precedence.

Some approaches might be to confine domestic companion animals to the home space. For example, cats can be kept indoors and some of their needs can be met with a cat run or by using a cat lead. Dogs can be contained on a lead except in designated dog parks.

Cheryl:  Your area of academic expertise is culture and media. What message did you hope to convey in your chapter, which you called Making Friends and Kin with Companion Animals, Skippy and Red Dog?

Debbie: Well, we started off with the premise that screen media stories are valuable because they engage people’s emotions. They can model how humans could learn to pay better attention to animal interests and how to build interspecies relationships. Our stories of friendship and care in the book when interacting with animals can be seen as a counternarrative to anthropocentrism. Such relationships cannot be fully described or understood by an economic narrative nor by anthropocentric values.

Making friends and kin with animals helps us shift away from narratives of anthropocentrism, for example, from claims that human exploitation of animals is justifiable and claims of human exceptionalism, that is, that human development interests justify animal harm and death. And from speciesism, that is, where little or no attention is given to animal interests and needs unless there’s a legal obligation to do so. They also help us shift away from the idea that all animals should be regulated for their impact on relevant ecosystems.

In friendships with animals and human-animal kinship, human and nonhuman sets of perspectives and interests need to matter and be considered. The key is to seeing nonhumans as having their own demands and interests and recognizing these need to be respected.

There is also a need to establish and maintain trust between humans and animals and this involves a process of mutual interactions, of learning from one another, of altering one’s behaviour for the sake of the other, that is, to consistently take other regarding actions and recognizing that wild and native animals need to be free to live in their own habitats.

We can all make a difference in the lives of other animals (and vice versa) by cultivating truly respectful other regarding relationships with them. This means giving time and building trust and it means listening to animal voices.

Cheryl:  A contentious issue in Australia at present is that of dealing with feral animals and also the separate issue of how best to live with, as you described it in Chapter 5 “roos, brumbies and other animals living ‘out there’”. What are your thoughts on how best to live with those animals living ‘out there’?

Debbie: In people’s minds they care about endangered animals, forests and trees. A World Wide Fund for Nature report in 2018 shows that 93% of Australians view protecting Australia’s native animals and trees as a priority.

But in reality, many Australians see the actuality of animal lives and habitats as out there. That is, outside of most Australians’ interests, consideration and responsibility. These animals only come under notice to Australians when they’re under threat, as they are each summer from catastrophic fires and floods or as a problem themselves.

We need to turn our abstract benevolence into action towards protecting the welfare or well-being of either individual animals or populations. We can do that by having respect for protection of wildlife habitats, by addressing climate change issues especially where it affects food sources causing species decline, by restricting land clearing, and by addressing the problem of unregulated and non-commercial culls of kangaroos and brumbies, for example.

We have to keep in mind the kangaroos were here first. Why can’t we make land provisions for them?

Another option is to strengthen the national environmental laws.

Cheryl: Now something completely different, but obviously connected. In Chapter 3, which you called Effecting Change: Transitioning Australia’s Meat Eating Culture, you discuss the use of cellular meat, which at first I found a bit off putting. However, after watching the YouTube video The Cultivated Meat Farm, I’ve changed my mind a bit. So how important do you think it is that we make a transition to cellular meat?

Debbie: Well, there are some issues that we have to think about. To begin with, as middle classes grow in developing countries, there is a rising demand for, and consumption of, meat protein. In India, meat eating is growing slowly in urban areas as more of a status symbol[1], whereas it’s growing rapidly in China, Brazil and parts of sub Saharan Africa. In contrast, in developed countries, we are seeing the rise of alternative food proteins, values and norms supporting different eating practices.

For instance, the Reduceritarian Movement advocates reducing the consumption of meat, dairy products and eggs and promotes eating plant based food to support the environment and animal welfare. The movement actively challenges industrialized animal agricultural practices, whereas Flexitarian Diets focus more on healthy eating by committing to reducing meat and dairy consumption with the aim of environmental sustainability. This is where you get the ideas of Meat Free Mondays and Vegan before Six plant based eating, which includes meat.

Then there is the development of cellular meat, also called cell-based meat or cultured-meat or clean-meat. Cellular meat or cell-based meat could be considered a key player to meet this demand for meat protein because it’s grown in laboratories, out of flesh grown from animal muscle. The process avoids the slaughter of industrialized animals. It can also reduce greenhouse emissions and protect the environment. But there are doubts about whether it will have better environmental outcomes because production requires more energy. And it still includes taking living tissue from animals.

A major issue for both plant-based meat and cellular meat is how to increase their aesthetic appeal, that is, the smell, the texture, the flavour and the mouthfeel of meat. Studies so far show that consumers have several concerns around its unnaturalness, high yuck and disgust factor, health dangers, as it is genetically modified, food safety issues regarding agro-food technologies, convenience in purchasing the product, affordability and availability.

I’ll now turn to recent developments in cultured meat or clean-meat, the preferred term. An organization in Belgium called GAIA found that people in Belgium want to eat less meat due to greenhouse gas emissions and health problems with red meat, but they don’t want to cut meat out of their diet altogether.[2]  Right now, GAIA has developed cultivated meat using muscle tissue (other organizations use bovine serum). It’s one way to reduce animal cruelty in agriculture. The YouTube video you referred to has been made by this organization.

Other challenges for the development of cultured meat in 2023 include: research mostly being done by private companies, technology challenges, talent gaps, funding gaps, data sharing in a competitive environment and addressing cultural and religious needs.

Cheryl: There’s still quite a lot for us to consider in that area, it seems. I was surprised but delighted to see a chapter on the Great Barrier Reef. What was your thinking around including Chapter 6, which you called Stewardship, Sustainability and Protecting the Great Barrier Reef?

Debbie:  We included a chapter on the Great Barrier Reef for several reasons. Firstly, the question driving the book, and one we explicitly foreground in this chapter is how can human-animal relations be imagined so that they do not end up protecting human interests to the detriment of the interests and lives of other species? We cannot leave unchecked our anthropocentricism, development practices and climate change. If we do, the very real risk is the irrevocable loss of Australia’s unique biodiversity. The Great Barrier Reef has a diversity of species and habitats. It is one of the richest and most complex natural ecosystems on Earth that has immeasurable cultural and economic value.

Stewardship and sustainability have been missing from many other calls for action to protect animals and animal populations – which we considered in previous chapters. Work carried out by First Nations people, scientists, environmental advocates, citizen scientists, marine park tourism operators, grassroots organizations, et cetera, is all part of stewardship and sustainability. In this chapter, we demonstrated that the ideas and practices of stewardship and sustainability are effective in focusing on changing our relationships with individual species of animals and also on our relationships with the habitat and the different species that comprise ecological communities.

Cheryl: In your book you have an animal welfare focus rather than an animal rights focus. Why is that? Why did you make that decision?

Debbie: Well, we made that decision because Australia at best is orientated towards animal welfarism rather than animal rights based arguments when it comes to recognizing and protecting nonhuman-animal interest. Australia is still predominantly a meat eating culture and vegan specific messaging has a history of being dismissed as extremist and unsupportive of Australia’s economy and conventional way of life.

Even existing Australian commitments to improving animal welfare become contested when human interests in development look to be under threat. Legislation and the majority of activism is strongly orientated towards an animal welfare approach. Ongoing political and economic value given to agriculture in Australia, including animal based agriculture, has meant that rights arguments opposing the use of animals have not gained the levels of public support that are typically held by arguments for improved animal welfare.

A lack of support for rights-based arguments and activism is also evidenced through the turn to Ag-Gag laws – the name given to legislation designed to curb animal activist (and environmental) monitoring, filming, and investigative activities.  Other legislative attempts are to silence and even criminalize activists’ critique of Australian agricultural practices and industries.

Cheryl:  Now to change the focus a bit. What has your research shown you about the differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous human-animal relationships?

Debbie: Because neither Jane nor I are of First Nations descent, we strived to engage with these ideas and values. However realistically, we can only understand the topmost and public layers of Indigenous ways of being.

While care for Country certainly aligns at least to some extent with ideas of interspecies solidarity and the importance of multispecies entanglements, the social and cultural use of animals in fishing, hunting and products is still a norm for First Nations cultures. Both animals and animal products are extremely important in the continuation of Australia’s First Nations cultures. First Nations kinship systems is a key difference.

From an Indigenous point of view, separation between humans and animals, between humans and country, and so on, is artificial. Kinship recognizes the interconnection of the different but equal threads that form every shape of life in Country. Instead of stressing differences such as alive versus nonliving human versus animal, there is no presumed opposition between human and animal interests.

Indigenous perspectives remind us that every thread is equal. In First Nations kinship systems, every person has a Dreaming or totem. This might be an animal and or land, waters or geographic features, the winds, plants, stories, songs or feelings.

First Nations people who have an animal Dreaming hold a unique connection to that animal and have the responsibility to look after that animal and maintain their connection. For example, if someone holds a kangaroo Dreaming, they would not hunt kangaroo, but would rather work to protect them. So the impact of the loss of First Nations totem animals is enormous.

When an Indigenous person’s totem dies, their connection with its spirit is compromised. Thus, First Nations peoples have a broader understanding of human and animal interconnectedness and care. We found it is clearly incorrect to describe the work of care for Country as welfarist.

Rather, it is driven by a very different set of foundational beliefs that of sentience-based animal welfarism. Yet it’s obvious that the work of care for Country aligns better with welfarist rather than rights based views.

Cheryl: What I’d like to know is if you think the topics and the solutions that you discussed in your book are going to help us move to a more eco-centric Australia.

Debbie: What we identified at the beginning of the book, which helped us to move towards a more eco-centric focus, was that we already live in multispecies communities, that our human lives are entangled with the other species that we rely on and live beside and alongside and that animal sentience could help us move towards practices of care, attentiveness and having an ethical obligation.

We can support populations of species and ecosystems for the long term in some of these ways. By having practices of cohabitation and community that are attentive beyond human interests. By actively recognising as our communities are more than human, they also become much more hospitable to nonhuman-animals. By becoming better at paying attention and being sensitive to nonhuman others, and by responding in meaningful and positive ways to their needs and interests. By being attentive we can make other perspectives and interests more visible to us.

We have some concrete ways we can do that. For example, having dog friendly public spaces, affordable cat enclosures, listening to Zoei Sutton’s call for accommodating animals through the better design of our home spaces, having public bird baths and water for birds, reintroducing native species, often smaller mammals, back into ecological communities, having parks to protect native species, building green corridors and or safe wildlife crossings, such as land-bridge passes to cross major highways and maintaining plants and trees in suburbs for healthy bird life.

Other ideas include: choosing plants and structuring our gardens so they will be friendly and supportive of visiting native wildlife. We get lots of examples of this on the ABC’s Gardening Australia program. We can avoid planting weeds that adversely affect the environment and we can alter our practices so that animals do not become pests, such as crows have become around garbage bins in some suburban areas. We can strive to rewild regional, rural, urban and suburban human-orientated communities. Rewilding is the idea of restoring ecosystems and species interactions to promote complexity and self-sustaining ecological communities and ecosystems. This can be done on islands, peninsulas and fenced off enclosures.

Cheryl: Debbie, you’ve been very generous in sharing your expertise and knowledge. I’m wondering if you have any final thoughts or messages that you’d like to express on the future of human-animal relations in Australia or, in fact, the world.

Debbie:  there are four things we suggest in the book that we need to recognize. The first is Australia at best is orientated to animal welfarism rather than to animal-rights based arguments. So one way forward is that even when human interests in development look to be under threat, at the same time we maintain our existing Australian commitments to improving animal welfare.

The second is that counter narratives of sentience, care and kinship appear to be gaining public traction in Australia with regards to their challenging of anthropocentric norms.

The third is not to let anthropocentrism, ignorance or indifference determine our choices and actions. Let’s explore what human lives and living might look like in multispecies communities and economies where nonhuman lives and well-being also hold value and are given consideration.

Finally, with the encroaching climate crisis and collapse of biodiversity, the fundamental challenge for all human societies is to counter anthropocentrism.

Cheryl: Thanks very much, Debbie, for sharing your insights and your knowledge on human-animal futures in Australia.

Debbie. Thank you.

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Imagining New Human-Animal Futures in Australia is available from public libraries in Australia, by clicking on the book cover above or from: https://wellemart-au.myshopify.com/products/imagining-new-human-animal-futures-in-australia-5.

[1] Khara, T., & Ruby, M. B. (2019). Meat eating and the transition from plant-based diets among urban Indians. M/C Journal, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1509

[2] Simcha Nyssen (GAIA Belgium). (2023, June 16-17). “Could cultured meat grow on farms across Europe?”. [Paper presentation]. European Association for Critical Animal Studies (EACAS) 8^th International Animal Futures Conference, Tallinn, Estonia.