FOUR PAWS is the global animal welfare organisation for animals under direct human influence, which reveals suffering, rescues animals in need and protects them. Our vision is a world where humans treat animals with respect, empathy and understanding. Learn more about FOUR PAWS here.

As an animal welfare organisation, we are alarmed about the unfolding climate crisis. Therefore, we have various campaigns and projects exposing the harmful practices of the meat and dairy industry that exploits billions of animals, people and our planet and demanding a food systems transformation.

In our Meat Exhaustion day reports, we look at the meat consumption per country. Here, we calculate when a country would exceed its 'sustainable' meat consumption defined by the Planetary Health Diet. This is a reference diet of the renowned scientific EAT-Lancet Committee, which looks into the environmental and health impacts of food.

We frequently attend climate strikes and protests related to animal agriculture in countries all around the globe.

Furthermore, systematic animal suffering tied to transport has been going on for far too long, and FOUR PAWS has fought to end cruel long-distance transport for many years. Following years of revealing animal welfare problems in live transport, the EU institutions have finally acknowledged that the current legislation needed better enforcement and changes.

With this, our policy experts are working tirelessly to ensure that the biggest animal welfare problems are addressed. They also make sure to give a voice to the animals in political settings like the UN Climate Conferences or the European Parliament.

FOUR PAWS work addresses the crucial intersection of animal welfare and public health, recognizing that many of today’s most pressing health threats, including COVID-19, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), arise from the way humans interact with and exploit animals. AMR, in particular, is a critical issue where the misuse of antimicrobials in factory farming to compensate for inadequate animal husbandry and poor animal welfare significantly contributes to the problem, posing a severe global health threat. FOUR PAWS emphasizes that the solution lies in improved keeping conditions of farmed animals, a reduction of the number of animals farmed and a transition towards more sustainable, diverse, and plant-rich diets. By enhancing the health and wellbeing of farm animals and advocating for better agricultural conditions, FOUR PAWS aims to lower the necessity to use antimicrobials, thus mitigating the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections and preventing AMR from escalating into a larger public health crisis.

Beyond addressing AMR, FOUR PAWS is actively engaged in tackling other significant health threats, including pandemic risks posed by zoonotic diseases. With 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases originating in animals, FOUR PAWS underscores the importance of addressing human behaviors that exacerbate pandemic risks. By targeting high-risk practices such as factory farming, wildlife trade, deforestation, and fur farming, FOUR PAWS seeks to improve our behavior towards animals and reduce zoonotic spillovers. FOUR PAWS advocates for stricter regulations on legal wildlife trade and the transformation of farming systems, aiming to curb high-risk practices that contribute to spillover of pathogens from wildlife to humans and domesticated animals and their spread. Through these efforts, FOUR PAWS is dedicated to safeguarding both animal welfare and human health while championing stronger international regulations to prevent future pandemics and promote health for all.

Wildlight is a non-profit freelancers’ cooperative delivering investigations for NGOs through fieldwork, data analysis and storytelling. FOUR PAWS collaborated with Wildlight on the movie 'Eating the Future'. FOUR PAWS funded the film and supported the content creation i.e. establishing contact with interviewees. However, the creative development of the movie was with Wildlight.

FOUR PAWS collaborated with Wildlight to create the movie Eating the Future. FOUR PAWS funded the film and supported the content creation i.e. establishing contact with interviewees. However, the creative development of the movie was with Wildlight as they have more experience and expertise in documentary-making.

The movie was shot between 2021 and 2023 in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and Romania.