18 May 2021
In response to the RCVS’ consultation on legislative reforms, Stephen Blakeway MA, VetMB, MSc, PGCE, MRCVS, imagines a profession focused more actively on the ecosphere and working within multidisciplinary teams to prevent animal suffering, stop biodiversity loss and heal the biosphere.
Stephen Blakeway
Job Title
Image: © artbesouro / Adobe Stock
The year is 2030. An enthusiastic and widely diverse new batch of veterinary students is enjoying “introductions week” at the start of the three-year veterinary science course.
They have been attracted to veterinary science by the outward-facing nature of the subject. They’re seeking out peers in natural, medical and environmental sciences; in social, economic and political sciences; among philosophers, physicists, chemists, carbon specialists, geographers, mappers, modellers, mathematicians and statisticians, ecologists, climate scientists, oceanographers, system design and computer scientists, teaching and learning specialists; and, of course, the arts.
In late 2021, two international conferences changed everything. In the wake of Covid-19, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties 15 in Kunming, China, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties 26 in Glasgow, were outstandingly successful. Most of the world’s governments swung behind a green agenda and things began to change remarkably quickly.
In early 2021, the RCVS was running a consultation on its review of veterinary regulation and the 1966 Veterinary Surgeons Act.
Data from 2019 was showing that 80% of vets responding to the RCVS Survey of the Veterinary Profession worked in practice. Of these, approximately:
These vets were serving approximately:
Meat came and went across our borders, as did live food animals. We were supporting animal industries that contributed so much to climate change; to direct environmental harm, and entailed so much suffering.
The farmland bird index for all farmland species had declined catastrophically. The index in 2018 was less than half of 1970 levels.
Then the conferences turned the light bulbs on and we opened our eyes. We, in the UK and in every other country that had signed up, realised we were already signatories to two pioneering conventions. These require precautionary approaches, and mandate us to communicate and act on what we know and learn about global biodiversity loss and climate change.
The UK veterinary profession found itself ahead of the curve. First it was horses that gave us our meaning and provided our livelihoods, then cattle, then dogs and cats: we were used to radical reinvention as society evolved. We were already reviewing our future after 60 years under a now outdated Veterinary Surgeons Act. In our most audacious reinvention, our client was to be nothing less than the whole biosphere.
The messages were clear, and we were listening. We were aware of the existential challenges; aware that we had been acting as service providers to industries exploiting animals; aware that we were socially unrepresentative. Many of us had travelled and worked in countries outside the global top 10 economies, and were aware the prevailing veterinary model failed resource-poor and otherwise marginalised communities.
We were the profession that cared for all non-human animals everywhere. One welfare was essential.
Our mental health was suffering from the mismatch between why we became vets, what we found ourselves doing and the circumstances in which we were doing it. Our minds were ill from our powerlessness.
Already passionate and full of ideas collected through Vet Futures and VetSustain, and from individuals with particular experience and from widely different backgrounds, the UK veterinary profession successfully reimagined itself within the broad environmental sciences.
We chose to become more diverse; to work collaboratively with even more allied and other professionals; to educate and rebuild ourselves; to embrace bold reform. We chose to start with a more solid foundation of understanding about animals, the ecosphere and regenerative economics. Then we could add our veterinary specialisation into the mix.
Alongside practical work, education has become our core work. Everything we do is an opportunity for ourselves and others to learn. We understand that this diverse world needs tailor-made niche solutions.
We work in multidisciplinary global alliances. We monitor; evaluate; help regulate. We work with people. We work with non-human animals. We empower communities. We help find practical answers to complex challenges.
As more land is wilded and protected from rapacious development, we are becoming increasingly involved in rebuilding ecosystems and wildlife populations, safeguarding their health and welfare alongside our own.
One welfare underscores everything we do: linking the health and welfare of animals, people and the environment. We do not shirk difficult computations. We work in teams that address the universal and the quantum.
There will always be the individual horse or donkey with colic far from specialist help; the strimmed hedgehog; the cow stuck giving birth; the netted seabird; the sheep with a rumen full of plastic; the camel or ostrich hit by a car and left unable to move by a road; the broiler chicken that can no longer stand.
Bitches and queens need spaying if we are not to be overrun with puppies and kittens. Veterinary services rely on someone local, trained and empowered to help animals in need. Every farmed animal deserves the same level of attention as a companion animal. We have come to realise that if these criteria are not met, our global veterinary system is failing.
Once the worst of COVID-19 had passed, the vet schools, perfectly placed to champion lifelong learning, met together to seize the day. The undergraduate degree was pared down to three years, focusing on a one welfare analysis of all things animal, and cross-teaching with a wide range of complementary disciplines. We burrow down into ecology and economics.
In such a varied landscape, clinical specialisms are supported by flexible, practical modules, available live and through virtual lifelong-learning portals, allowing individuals to cultivate and grow their education to fit their chosen areas of work.
We have linked with a growing network of similarly minded universities around the world, allowing mixed groups of students to meet virtually to pool ideas, experience and data in problem-based projects relating to real-world global veterinary challenges. Subsidies are available for equally essential, but less attractive, areas of work.
Signatory as we all are to the global conventions, and communicating why and how we do what we do to a public growing increasingly aware, the complaint culture that has been traumatising vets has fallen away, misunderstandings are dealt with through local mediation and disciplinary cases are rare.
In this new landscape, charities that had been mopping up the fallout in animal welfare are evolving towards better, more interpretive care and education. Many who were worried by the novelty and rate of change are being won around. Meat consumption globally is plummeting. We are relearning old skills. Herders and animal keepers are keeping animals in smaller groups better integrated within a healthy biosphere.
Public opinion has swung behind healthier, less fashion-driven pet and food industries. The oceans increasingly abound with life. The Government, impressed, has enacted new veterinary services legislation enabling veterinary teams to deliver services in line with the one welfare precautionary approach.
Our 2030 students are confident in their choice. The revised courses started in 2024 and the impact of the new approach is visible through the excellent work of inspirational young graduates. Tech-savvy and globally linked, they are helping extend the reach of veterinary services, proving themselves thought-leaders, championing behaviour change around animals. Pets, food, environment: the world is looking better for animals Every animal remains an individual sentient being.
The vets of the future will be where they should be, working on the front line within multidisciplinary teams preventing animal suffering, stopping biodiversity loss and healing the ecosphere.
The author is a trustee and co-founder of Vetwork UK, a charitable incorporated organisation working since 1997 to “link the health and welfare of animals, people and the environment”. Its last big project was managing the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards project. If anyone is interested in being part of the next stage of the journey, something in line with the ideas expressed above, please contact the author at [email protected]
In response to the RCVS’ consultation on legislative reforms, Stephen Blakeway MA, VetMB, MSc, PGCE, MRCVS, imagines a profession focused more actively on the ecosphere and working within multidisciplinary teams to prevent animal suffering, stop biodiversity loss and heal the biosphere.
