The Cabildo of Lanzarote has just created the Island Board of Animal Welfare, becoming "the first supramunicipal institution in the Canary Islands to provide advice to the island's town councils and develop joint policies in this area", according to the Cabildo in a statement.
“This is the beginning of a journey in coordination with all the town councils, as well as with the affected groups and other competent entities, which we are convinced will cause a turning point in the management of animal welfare on our islands of Lanzarote and La Graciosa”, said councilor Aroa Revelo, responsible for Social Welfare of the Cabildo.
The activation of the Island Animal Welfare Board is a fundamental tool for the coordinated management of the Cabildo with the local councils, which are competent in the protection of companion animals. The Institution chaired by Oswaldo Betancort thus launches a space to discuss issues related to animal welfare, establishing coordinated and joint management strategies, seeking effective solutions and with a totally ethical vision of the treatment of animals.
This Island Board not only includes the technical coordination of the corporations under the umbrella of the Cabildo, but also foresees the celebration of a social table on the matter, during the month of December, a forum that will be made up of animal protection associations duly constituted and updated. “The objective is that the agreements reached at this social table are then elevated to the technical table to assess their viability,” the councilor detailed.
This union between all the entities involved in animal welfare and society, which voluntarily gets involved every day in the care of abandoned animals, deserves administrations that are up to the current reality.
Common strategies
In the first Island Animal Welfare Board, which is made up of the eight competent public administrations, various issues of great relevance have been debated and agreed upon, such as the strategies to be followed in feline management, understanding the C.E.R. method, capture, sterilization and return as the most ethical and effective feline colony management methodology currently.
It was agreed to promote specific training for municipal technical teams in the comprehensive management of files on abandonment and animal abuse to ensure the optimal development of the same, increasing the protection of affected animals.
Likewise, the improvement of municipal shelters -both in their equipment and in their infrastructures- has been one of the issues debated and agreed upon, with the Animal Welfare Area of the Cabildo of Lanzarote showing its total willingness to act in these measures to promote comfort in the animal community. The Board, which lasted about two hours, served to update the demands and particularities of each municipality and the proposals of each of them in many other related issues.
The frequency of the sessions has been established every two months, without prejudice to any of the members of the board requesting a justified extraordinary session.
“We must be up to the demands of society, and the Cabildo of Lanzarote is willing to provide all the necessary help in this challenge. We must be self-critical and assume that for years the necessary importance has not been given to an issue as important for an advanced society like ours as animal welfare is”, concluded councilor Aroa Revelo.
