SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 17

Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

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OBJECTIVE:
The world is more interconnected than ever. Improving access to technology and knowledge is an important way to share ideas and foster innovation. Coordinating policies to help developing countries manage their debt, as well as promoting investment for the least developed, is vital for sustainable growth and development.

The goals aim to enhance North-South and South-South cooperation by supporting national plans to achieve all the targets. Promoting international trade, and helping developing countries increase their exports is all part of achieving a universal rules-based and equitable trading system that is fair and open and benefits all.

HOW ANIMAL EXPLOITATION UNDERMINES THIS GOAL

Those lobbyist organizations representing interests of the animal agriculture industry have long misrepresented the harmful elements of their products, harm to animal and human welfare, as well as the harms done in their production processes to the environment. The very nature of this subversion has undermined consumer awareness and fostered distrust in systems of law and governance. Such a lobby that has the financial means to delay and avert court proceedings for multiple years while at the same time the industry is allowed to stand as “experts” in the writing of legislation meant to regulate business practices and protect health and the environment, makes a travesty of the social contract on which effective government depends. As a result, legislation leans towards the interests of the industry and against the interests of those whom the legislation is supposed to protect. These subversive practices lead to blatant levels of corruption in the governing process. Funds long ago devised to support struggling farmers and their families instead go to huge conglomerates, their corporate executives and stockholders, leaving vulnerable farmers, who labor upon the land and tend the animals, dried out or drowned out, left in debt, often debt tied to those very corporate entities.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry profits from the damage to the health of animals and the human population, genetically modifying animals, accelerating their growth, subjecting them to drugs that keep them alive, despite their unsanitary conditions, to feed humans the animal flesh and secretions that itself provokes the chronic diseases that their drugs are used to suppress. To create these medicines, millions of animals are sacrificed in the name of science, whereas the results are often useless when applied to humans.

In this web of fraudulent, immoral business practice, the industries of animal exploitation, animal feed, animal agriculture, and animal testing, that deny investigation and inspections, cover-up wrongdoings, put out misleading marketing and manipulate legislation and court judgments, undermine the health of consumers, the wellbeing of the animals, and destroy the natural environment, stressing its resources to the limit, act in concert, undermining the efforts of other more ethical businesses and global institutions that seek to partner to achieve the realization of the SDGs.

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Further Reading:

Goal 17 : Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform (United Nations website)

Visual testimonies bring home the fact that we have enacted little to no equitable partnership with vital elements of Earth, certainly not with other sentient species on our shared planet which is proving to be a catastrophic mistake.

Environment: “Canada’s permafrost melting faster than predicted, study finds” – https://youtu.be/MgOODnINMnk

Animal Agriculture: “Harris Beef largest feedlot and slaughterhouse operation of the West Coast” – https://youtu.be/bfB192xAkrA

The “Link”, Abuse and Violence: Tracking Animal Cruelty as Precursor to Other Crimes (Learn More, Video) By Tammy Waitt – December 18, 2017 – https://americansecuritytoday.com

Rape of the Oceans: Investigations “Aquaculture: A Sea of Sufferin” – https://animaloutlook.org/investigations/aquaculture/

Animal Testing: “GRAPHIC: Sickening video of wounded dogs left to die on a rooftop in the cold” – https://www.express.co.uk

Animal Sport: “Horse Racing Wrongs” Video/Documentation – https://horseracingwrongs.org

The only partnerships of note with the interests of animals and nature are of organizations represented by this foundation website, and others across the globe who also care and understand the desperate need.

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