Civets Well Represented at World's Largest Animal Advocacy Conference!

The Civet Project and ABConservation attending the AfA2025 conference

The Civet Project Foundation and ABConservation bring focus to under-represented civet species at the prestigious Asia for Animals Conference 2025.

Every two years, delegates from animal welfare and conservation organisations around the world meet in the largest networking event of its kind where they come together to share ideas, learn new skills and collectively strategize for a kinder world for animals. The event is hosted by the Asia for Animal Coalition and local partners within the selected host country.

The Asia for Animals Coalition, or AfA, is a network of hundreds of animal protection and advocacy organizations working together to improve the well-being of animals across Asia and beyond, and The Civet Project Foundation has been a member since 2023. Membership to the AfA has been fundamental to The Civet Project Foundations success in raising the profile of civet species within the public, non-profit and industry sectors. Together, The Civet Project and the AfA have broadened the reach of World Civet Day via blogs, social media content and podcast features, and they've lobbied large tourism corporations, calling on them to stick to their promise to stop selling tickets to cruel civet coffee attractions. In their latest collective effort, the AfA wrote an appeal letter to the UK Government, asking them to include civet coffee tourism in the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023. These appeals have been the most signed by any appeals to date, with over 200 organisations from the network adding their name to protect civets from exploitation in tourism.

AfA 2025: Taipei

Set in Taipei, a city with a progressive attitude towards the humane treatment of animals, the AfA Conference 2025 was attended by more than 600 delegates from around the world, including Taiwan's President Lai Ching-Te. Mr Lai Ching-Te spoke elegantly about his commitment to animal welfare, speaking fondly of his own rescued dog 'Ban Ban' whose companionship and sense of spirit had inspired the President to strengthen animal welfare protections in Taiwan.

President of Taiwan, Lai Ching-Te (center) at AfA 2025

Among the delegates were two organisations representing civets: The Civet Project Foundation and their partner ABConservation. As the only organisations in the world dedicated to the protection of Viverrid species, it was an incredible joy to have both present at the AfA conference- which brought civets into nearly every session of the event! Both The Civet Project and ABConservation attended the pre-conference workshops, splitting their time between sessions on wildlife sanctuaries, social media animal cruelty, and capacity building in animal advocacy. It was particularly encouraging to see indigenous perspectives and land rights discussed in relation to furthering animal advocacy and how organisations ought to be including these groups and accounting for their perspectives. It was also enormously inspiring to discuss diverse species needs, with delegate representatives for all manner of species from cats and dogs to civets, bears, frogs and parrots.

Jes, The Civet Project Foundation (center back right) attends a workshop on animal cruelty prevention on social media

Olie, ABConservation (center left) attends a workshop on animal sanctuaries and rescue centers

On Day 1 of the conference, The Civet Project Foundations founder and CEO, Dr Jes Hooper, presented a twenty minute talk titled "Our Road Map for Change: Protecting Civets from the Civet Coffee Tourism Industry". In it, Jes candidly spoke about the key challenges the charity faced in its emergence, including the lack of public awareness of civets, the true costs of civet coffee, or public knowledge of The Civet Project itself. Jes explained how The Civet Project Foundation set about raising the profile of civets and the threats caused by civet coffee tourism - detailing their road map to change which started with data-driven research, creative and engaging resources based in fact, and collaboration with other organisations including the industries they wished to change.

Dr Jes Hooper, Founder and CEO of The Civet Project Foundation, presenting to delegates at the AfA 2025 conference on the topic of civet coffee tourism and civet protection needs.

The final pit-stop in their road map to change was post-monitoring, to ensure change is long lasting. At this point, Jes gave the audience an example of why this step was so important. It was only when The Civet Project re-audited the sites of the leading tourism platforms who had agreed to work with them, that they found Tripadvisor had not stuck to their promise- civet coffee tours were still being advertised without welfare warnings. Had the charity not done due diligence then they would not have know their efforts could have been in vain. Thankfully, undeterred and even more impassioned than before, The Civet Project travelled their road map again and, only days after the conference, negotiations were successfully reopened with Tripadvisor and the collaboration now continues to protect civets from unethical tourism.

Q&A session following talks by Dave, Tanya and Jes

Accompanying Jes on the Challenges and Obstacles: Wild Animals Used in Entertainment panel was Dave Neale of Animals Asia and Tanya Erzinclioglu of Four Tigers. Whilst Dave spoke of the impressive work of Animals Asia in their transformation of low welfare elephant riding to elephant ecotourism in Vietnam, all achieved by working with communities and not against them, Tanya gave warning of the dangers of reactive action. Her organisation was established in the wake of the poorly planned closure of the controversial Tiger Temple which resulted in the preventable deaths of confiscated tigers. Another highlight in the AfA conference was the Dialogue with Stakeholders for Wild Animals session, where speakers spoke of their organisational approaches to complex issues such as bear bile farming, cetacean sentience, trade regulations and orangutan protection. On the panel was one of The Civet Project's Board Members, Heidi Quine, the Country Director for Animals Asia in Vietnam. Heidi gave an emotive talk, detailing the plight of bile farmed bears and the importance of approaching bear owners with compassion and kindness. Whilst there was barely a dry eye in the room, the resounding take away message was, once again, that animal advocacy is most effective when we include people and bring them on our journey with us. It was also an incredible honour to have The Civet Project mentioned by the panelists as an example of how to raise the profile of less known and less-charismatic species during the accompanying audience Q&A session.

Panel Q&A for the session on stakeholder dialogue

Over the course of the three days, civets came up in conversation a lot! Lunch time discussions included knowledge sharing and strategizing for The Civet Project's upcoming flagship program: Civet One Health, as well as learning more about the processes involved in CITES and how international trade agreements might be an effective avenue to protect civet species going forward. With trade research in mind, The Civet Project and ABConservation shared updates with each other on upcoming research agendas and took the opportunity to share methodological processes. All in all, the conference presented the optimal opportunity to strengthen inter-organisational connections and it was incredibly exciting to hear so many people recognize the work being done for civets who have traditionally been absent from advocacy conversations. Speaking of her conference experience, Jes commented:

"AfA2025 exceeded my expectations. The sessions were exceptionally well organised and offered reflections for organisations of every size and with relevance for every species. As an organisation that is small, new, and operates remotely, this event was an important opportunity for The Civet Project Foundation to network and learn from others. It was an absolute honour to see civets on the agenda and I know that they will be a frequent species of discussion for future events to come!"

The Civet Project Foundation would like to offer sincere thanks to the AfA team and their event partners and sponsors for hosting such an incredible AfA2025; and for their generous support of The Civet Project Foundation who were a recipient of a travel grant. For more information on the AfA, please visit their website.