On 22nd April 2023, Earth Day, more than 50 Vegan Earth Day Marches were staged in more than 22 countries. The Vegan Earth Day March is an international public event that simultaneously staged street marches, rallies, vegan outreach events, and other vegan-related activities. The goal of the event was to raise awareness about the negative environmental and climate impacts of animal agriculture and to urge governments to make policy changes to address these issues.
The event, which started this year, was created by Sarina Farb and Chelsea V Davis, who were inspired by the Youth Climate March and wanted to create a similar event that focused on animal agriculture. They have partnered with organizations such as Animal Save Movement and Climate Healers to organize the event.
Marches happened in New York City, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, London, Amsterdam, Porto, Mexico City, Toronto, Zurich, Lagos, and other major cities worldwide. In London, UK, the march, which was organised by the animal rights group Animal Rising (formally Animal Rebellion), quickly joined the much bigger Earth Day March that was taking place in the city at the same time around the Westminster area, reinforcing each other’s messages, and hopefully reminding environmentalists that animal agriculture is a leading contributor of environmental destructions they cannot ignore.
Dr Sailesh Rao, founder and executive director of Climate Healers, a non-profit dedicated to healing the Earth’s climate said to Unchainedtv about this march a few days before the event, “We need to now start acting as if we have already won the argument… This is why I like the initiative that Sarina and Chelsea started because to me it is telling the people who are environmentalists that we need to take that step. Stop ignoring the cow in the room. We are going to have Vega the cow in Santa Monica, and she is there to send a message that we have to start considering the cow in the room.”
