INDONESIA - HALAL - Australia urged to help Indonesia on animal welfare

AUSTRALIA needs to do more to help improve animal welfare in Indonesia following the lifting of the ban on live exports, a University of Adelaide researcher says. 
 
Dr Risti Permani, from the school of economics, said the federal government should take a more hands-on role with Indonesia in the treatment of cattle that leave Australian shores.(source)

She said the problems of animals being treated badly at some abattoirs in Indonesia related to a lack of proper regulations and a lack of educated and skilled workers in cattle production.
"A fundamental problem with the Australian response to this issue is the failure to understand that the abuses uncovered are directly related to the systematic regulatory problems within the industry," Dr Permani says.
"Recognition of these issues would have led Australia to help Indonesia with the animal welfare problem rather than rely on the blunt instrument of an export ban, which has already done damage to Australia's cattle industry and its relations with Indonesia."

Dr Permani, who wrote a policy brief on the live export issue for the university's new Indo-Pacific Governance Research Centre, said Australia still had an opportunity to help Indonesia improve animal welfare, building on decades of collaborative agricultural research between the two countries.
"Australia has much to offer Indonesia in terms of developing regulatory capacities," she said.
"Such a response would mean that animal welfare is not seen as some kind of moral blame game, but the result of regulatory underdevelopment.
"Worker exchange and capacity building programs to train Indonesian officials in the supervision and monitoring of cattle slaughter would be a positive step forward."
Dr Permani said it was important to understand that Muslim Indonesians were as equally upset as Australians over the issue.
"Most Muslim Indonesians feel that the inhumane treatment of animals is not in keeping with the spirit of Islam generally, or Halal," she said.
"The lack of monitoring of Halal practices in Indonesia has been a concern of Muslim Indonesians for a long time."

Source : http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/australia-urged-to-help-indonesia-on-animal-welfare/story-e6frf7jx-1226092604519 - July 12, 2011