NGO in Special
Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United
Nations
Bay News
Stuart Whitaker Chief Reporter 18.05.2012
Last week Welcome Bay's Elly Maynard received the news she has been waiting 12 years for.
Elly was notified that her quest to have dog meat removed from the human food chain has reached one of the most powerful committees at the United Nations - the 2012 High Level Segment of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
In 2000, enraged by a newspaper article about the farming of dogs for meat in China, Elly went global with a petition and such was the strength of feeling about what she was trying to do that the petition eventually secured 4.75 million signatures.
She also formed the Sirius Global Animal Trust, and won Non Government Organisation (NGO) status within the UN for Sirius.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, but this year, at last, the organisation Elly founded will be heard by one of the world's most powerful committees.
A submission, focussing particularly on the health risks of consuming dog meat, was one of 120 put forward to be heard at July's eight day meeting in New York.
"A hundred and twenty were originally accepted and from them 36 will be going through to the meeting - ours, on dogs in the human food chain, is one of the 36," she says.
"After 12 years to get to this stage, to have UN interested enough to consider our submission when there were 120 submitters, is the best honour we could ever have."
She describes it as a major coup. "It's never been discussed at UN at this level before and it's a world first - we are the only organisation to get an issue (relating) to companion animals at UN - it's the UN honouring our status as an NGO."
Elly says that she hopes that ultimately the outcome will be that dogs are added to the list of animals that are not for human consumption produced by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
"They produce a list of what is and what isn't for human consumption - we want dogs on the list of what isn't for human consumption."
Sirius already has contacts with individual country's governments, including the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.
"We have good relationships with those individual governments but that's nothing to getting every single representative together at the UN itself.
"I was stunned and shocked, but over the moon - I am still on a high," she says.
But Elly is far from an armchair campaigner. She has been there on the front lines when dogs have been rescued by the Animal Kingdom Foundation in the Philippines - rescues filmed and shown on TV programmes 60 Minutes and Campbell Live.
"And we have been talking to governments, and being involved in a good number of ways - we are actually doing something rather than sitting on the sidelines.
"But this is probably the biggest step we have taken so far - it's certainly the biggest opportunity we have had - we are a voice for these animals at the UN and the fact that they are taking this seriously is beyond words.
"It's been quite an emotional roller coaster and after seeing the faces of the dogs rescued and the fear on their faces, to now know we have got to this stage is amazing."
Elly is unsure whether she will be able to attend the meeting in New York because of the expense involved.
