In the Name of Animals

Estonian animal rights movement

Estonian animal rights movement Loomade Nimel (In the Name of Animals) was formed in 2006. Before that there was only an animal welfare organization and the idea of animal rights had not received any media coverage. In the beginning, the movement had a lot of help from the finnish AR group.

The estonian movement focused its activities on fur campaigning, joining the global campaign against Escada and organizing yearly anti-fur marches, which brought quite a lot of media attention. Slowly new people started becoming active, while some of the older activists dropped out.

Besides the yearly anti-fur marches, one of the biggest events Loomade Nimel has organized was the four day anti-vivisection event in Tartu, during the meeting of Scandinavian vivisectors group. There were a lot of workshops, movies were shown and there was quite a big demonstration as well. A lot of new people got interested in animal rights and Loomade Nimel during this event.

Currently the movement has been active for over 3 years. Compared to other European countries, it is a really short period of time and the society here is still far from accepting the idea of animal rights.
Activists are mostly from the capital Tallinn and the second biggest city Tartu. Loomade Nimel has a public mailing-list where there is about 130 people.

The main activities right now revolve around fur and animal circuses. The movement takes part in Escada and Max Mara campaign. There have probably been around 40 demos in front of these stores. Demonstrations against animal circus, which tours Estonia in summer are organized regularly, leaflets are distributed and there is also a chance of a law being passed, banning the use of wild animals in circuses. Both of these campaigns have received quite a lot of media coverage.

The movement also helds quite a lot of lectures etc on different animal rights related issues, organizes film showings and other info-events and info-stalls.

Want to drop a word? info[at]loomadenimel[dot]org