Tom Harris on the SHAC campaign and the significance of grassroots advocacy

A podcast showcasing innovative and impactful ways to help animals and build the animal advocacy movement. Amy Odene & James Ozden talk to experts about a variety of topics: animal rights, animal welfare, alternative proteins, the future of food, and much more. Whether it's political change, protest, technological innovation or grassroots campaigns, they aim to cover it all with deep dives we release every two weeks.

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There are not many people who have spent time in prison for their commitment to help animals, but Tom Harris is one of them. We spoke with Tom about his time in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign (SHAC), one of the most well-known animal rights campaigns of the last 20-30 years.

We speak about why he thinks the campaign was so effective in applying pressure to companies, things he would do differently, common misconceptions about the SHAC campaign and the importance of grassroots advocacy in the animal rights movement. We also spend a bit of time talking about his future plans for rebuilding the grassroots advocacy scene in the UK so stick around to the end for some exciting plans.

Resources: 

• Your Neighbour Kills Puppies: Tom Harris
• SHAC Justice Site – The campaign to have the convictions appealed
• Contact Information
• Email Contact for SHAC Justice

00:00:00:00 | Intro
00:02:14:01 | A recent mistake others can learn from
00:04:46:18 | SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty)
00:12:02:22 | Lord Sainsbury
00:16:11:20 | Secondary Targeting
00:19:19:18 | Misconceptions about SHAC
00:24:55:18 | Losing local activist groups
00:35:17:05 | Lessons learned from SHAC campaign
00:38:18:09 | Prison sentence
00:46:32:17 | Benefit of focusing on one target
00:54:04:04 | Future work with local groups
01:09:57:05 | The SHAC Justice Campaign
01:19:28:21 | Closing questions

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