Gracious viewers, hallo and welcome to today’s Good People, Good Works, featuring an interview with Mia MacDonald, the vegan founder and executive director of the non-profit organization Brighter Green. Based in New York City, USA, the organization’s dedicated members use their wide range of skills and knowledge to help create a better world for humans, animals, and our planet.

Brighter Green is a public policy “action tank,” and it was established to look at issues of environment, animals and sustainability, bring those together, transform public policy and dialogue about those issues globally and locally, with a particular focus on issues of equity and rights.

So when I say “public policy,” I mean government policies; I also mean the way society views certain issues. And our goal is really to do thinking, so we’re like a think tank, but we call ourselves an “action tank” because while we’re thinking, we’re also doing. We’re taking the results of our research, our writing, our thinking, some international networking, to transform those into actual programs and actual change on the ground.

Ms. MacDonald has long been committed to animal advocacy and environmentalism, having worked as a consultant to organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Save the Children, the Sierra Club and several United Nations agencies.

My background is in public policy, and actually international public policy. And what I would find is I would go to environmental conferences or conferences focused more on gender or human rights, and I really wouldn’t see any attention to the set of issues Brighter Green is trying to work on, issues of, this growth of intensive animal agriculture, and what that really means, and the real downsides of that. So I felt like I wanted to work on those issues in a more structured way.

Operating both independently and in conjunction with other groups around the world, Brighter Green focuses on reaching out to the public, politicians, policy makers, and the media from the local to the international level on topics that are most vital to our planet right now.

So how do we try to work to get it out there? One way is by doing a lot of research so we feel like we have the facts at our hands. The other is by networking to liaise with groups in different countries who are interested in this set of issues. They might care about water pollution, and see that factory farms are very heavily polluting water resources in countries.

So we try to make alliances and then we basically try to share our research with key people, both inside governments and policy institutions, of which there are a growing number around the world. And with global civil society, of which it seems like your work is part of that as well, where there are people who care about the state of the planet, care about the future of the planet, and are really trying to work to change conditions in their own local communities but also within governments.

So just for one concrete example, I attended the (COP15) Copenhagen climate change talks. And so there I spoke on a panel that looked at issues of climate change, livelihoods and livestock. So again I was trying to bring the livestock sector into a broader framework of climate change and livelihoods.

On the panel was Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and actually Brighter Green co-sponsored that panel with the Green Belt Movement. So the room was packed, and it was a great effort to try to share this work, and try to show the context of why it really is important to the climate. So I’d say that’s one concrete example.

We’re also doing some documentation work, and again in Copenhagen showed a film that we’re making about intensive animal agriculture in China. So again, another way of trying to engage both individuals, people with organizations, as well as, if we can, people in policy-making positions.

One-third of the world’s cereal harvest and over 90% of soya is used for animal feed. The grain currently fed to livestock is enough to feed two billion people. Brighter Green is building awareness among the public of the multitude of environmental, ethical and health concerns related to factory farming.

So one area that I think your viewers will be interested in is we are looking to change the way people think about food, and the way they think about animals, in the context of things like animal rights, but also in the context of sustainability, environmental rights, and some larger concepts of food security and equity. So one of the main programs we have is tracking factory farming.

And as some of your viewers will also know this phenomenon that has been unfortunately spread around the world to many countries that we think of as developing countries, places like China, places like India, places like Brazil, even poorer countries like Ethiopia, and other countries in Africa and Latin America.

So what we’re trying to show is how this phenomenon is extremely negative. One is from a climate perspective, but also looking at some issues of animal welfare, public health, other ecological concerns, issues of ethics, issues of equity, and trying to make the case, again based on science, based on research, based on interviews with people in a number of countries, that this is not the road to go down.

When we return we’ll continue our conversation with Mia MacDonald, as she further discusses her group’s benevolent work and goals for the future. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

I think that there is a movement around the world saying that industrial agriculture, whether for animals or plants, is simply not sustainable. There are a lot of alliances being built around people who care about the environment, climate, small farmers, and organic agriculture. So that, actually, I would say, is a very positive trend.

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works as we continue our interview with Mia MacDonald, the vegan founder and executive director of Brighter Green. Brighter Green is deeply concerned about the heating of our planet and its devastating effects on vulnerable populations in developing nations.

What’s also happening is there is a lot of interest in issues of indigenous rights, indigenous voices on issues of climate change, but there are not a lot of women involved in those dialogues. Many of the people are men. So we’re working with a partner organization in the United States called “Tribal Link,” as well as three organizations, two in Kenya, one in Tanzania, all run by indigenous people.

We’ve launched a program for girls from poor communities who are needy and bright, affected by climate change. They’re being supported to finish their high school education. And as they do that, they will also participate in workshops; rights training workshops, workshops on gender equity, and workshops on climate change.

And the idea being that they will be developed into leaders who can be effective both within their communities, so not to lose their ties to their community, to their grassroots, but also could participate, let’s say, in future climate change conferences to really bring those realities to the fore. So that’s one of the things we’re doing in the area of sustainability.

Brighter Green is also involved in constructive action on global warming in the city where it is headquartered - New York City, USA. It’s working with other groups on a city council resolution that would establish plant-based agriculture as a means to reduce the City’s carbon footprint.

In New York City there’s been a resolution introduced at the city council looking at issues of climate change and food, and basically saying to the City, “If you don’t address issues of food and agriculture, you will not meet the goals for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from the City.”

So Brighter Green has been part of that effort along with groups who care about animals, groups that care about food justice, groups that care about the environment, community gardens groups, and anti-hunger groups.

So it’s a resolution called the “Food Print” and it calls on New York City to establish a more sustainable, humane food system, which would put plant-based agriculture at its center, working with local farmers, but really saying that to have more access to fresh, healthy produce would be extremely good for the City in terms of environment. It would be very good for public health; particularly communities that are under-served that have few supermarkets, have no community gardens, and have no farmer’s markets.

So in that way, what I think is important in terms of a concrete outcome, even though the resolution has not passed yet, it’s the first of its kind to have been introduced in New York City.

How does Brighter Green envision itself progressing in coming years?

I’d like us to continue the work that we’ve done. I’d like us to engage more people around the world more directly in our work. And I think like any kind of person and institution doing policy work, to feel like we see some concrete changes, to feel like by the next climate conference the issue of industrial and animal agriculture is on the agenda in the government conference, not only in the civil society conference or primarily there.

So I’d like to see us expand awareness even more through multi-media, through writing, through documentary, through alliances, through networking and to see more concrete changes in terms of policy.

In closing, Mia MacDonald shares her thoughts on people across the globe working together to take our world to a higher level.

I’d just say I’m really impressed with the work going on at Supreme Master TV and the other efforts. And I saw many people from the group in Copenhagen and was very impressed with their resilience and stamina. I think that we live in a very interesting time and I think there’s a lot, a lot to do, a lot to learn, a lot to share.

So even though there’s some days when I’m quite pessimistic, when I look at some of these global trends, I’m also quite hopeful that there’s time to turn things around. So I would say I appreciate the work and hope to continue doing my part of it through Brighter Green.

Our sincere thanks Mia MacDonald and the dedicated team at Brighter Green for your productive research and inspiring programs, both local and global, which are helping to secure a better future for both humans and animals, while safeguarding our beloved planet Earth. We wish you all the very best in your future endeavors.

For more details on Brighter Green, please visit www.BrighterGreen.org

Benevolent viewers, we appreciate your company today on Good People, Good Works. Next is The World Around Us, coming up after Noteworthy News. May the Divine light of Heaven shine on all of Earth’s precious co-inhabitants.