Latest news with #Bellis
Global News
07-05-2025
- General
- Global News
Pets languishing in Vancouver shelter due to no-social media policy, volunteer says
A volunteer with the Vancouver Animal Shelter claims pets are waiting longer than necessary for their forever homes because the city of Vancouver is not utilizing the free and wide-ranging reach of social media platforms to showcase its adoptable animals. As of Tuesday, 11 pets, including six dogs, several guinea pigs, rabbits and gerbils, were up for adoption on the city's website which has links to an 'available pets' page. 'We have dogs that are sitting for eight, nine, 10 months,' said volunteer Rhianydd Bellis. 'There (are) animals that have been inside for over a year at this point.' 1:18 Global Okanagan Adopt A Pet: Wilbur & Templeton Bellis has written to the city's mayor and council, asking that they allow Vancouver Animal Shelter (VAS) to set up its own Facebook and Instagram accounts like other Metro Vancouver municipalities have done for similar animal facilities. Story continues below advertisement 'In my view, the city of Vancouver is prioritizing its brand over the visibility of its animals,' Bellis told Global News in an interview. The volunteer said many in the community are not even aware that VAS exists. 'Vancouver is the outlier here; every single municipal shelter in Metro Vancouver has a very successful social media presence,' said Bellis. Surrey, Langley and New Westminster all have dedicated Facebook and Instagram pages to highlight their adoptable animals. In a May 1 Facebook post, Langley Animal Protection Society (LAPS) said social media enabled it to reach over 1.4 million views in April alone. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'Every single view, like, comment, and share means more eyes on vulnerable animals, more chances for them to be seen, supported, and adopted,' read the LAPS post. The online visibility, LAPS said, means more forever homes found, more medical care funded and 'more love and hope for those who need it most.' 'You're not just following us — you're saving lives. You're not just sharing a post – you're giving an animal a second chance,' stated the LAPS post. 0:47 Global Okanagan Adopt A Pet: Grain of Sand In Vancouver, potential pet parents must navigate several links on the city's website before being directed to a page featuring adoptable animals. Story continues below advertisement 'It's very clear that this centralized social media policy is undermining the city's ability to get its animals seen,' said Bellis. Coun. Pete Fry with the Green Party found his previous dog Ruby at VAS, which he said he only knew about as a resident of the Strathcona neighbourhood. View image in full screen Pete Fry and his dog Ruby. Submitted 'When I adopted her she'd been there nine months, she'd been adopted twice and returned twice,' Fry told Global News in a Tuesday interview. 'She was kind of a hard-luck case, she turned out to be an amazing dog though.' Fry agrees that a social media presence is needed to expedite pet adoptions and blames slow-moving bureaucracy and red tape for the city's current position. The City of Vancouver recently featured an adoptable dog bio on its Facebook page, and Fry said the April 10 post ended up being one of the most popular it has ever had. Story continues below advertisement 'I really do appreciate the volunteers who are strenuously advocating to make us move faster on this,' said Fry. 'At the end of the day, it's about fantastic dogs who are languishing in doggie jail, and honestly, they don't thrive in the pound necessarily.' On Monday and in advance of this story, Global News asked for access inside the taxpayer-funded VAS to film the adoptable pets, but the City of Vancouver denied our request, claiming visits require prior permission and are 'by appointment only.' The City of Vancouver also did not make anyone available for an interview on why its animal shelter has no social media channels, although an official spokesperson noted, 'Last August, Global News has featured some adoptable animals on the morning show which was greatly appreciated and impactful. We would be happy to do something similar when a spokesperson is available.' The city also issued a statement which did not directly answer questions from Global News. 'The City of Vancouver is deeply appreciative of the efforts of staff and volunteers involved with the care of animals at the City's animal shelter and shares the goal of spreading the word about adoptable animals in Vancouver,' it said. 'The City's social media channels are run by staff to ensure cohesion with our overarching social media strategy and industry and accessibility standards, along with allowing for community management support. Some smaller legacy accounts are still in use from a time when today's social media practices were not in effect.' Story continues below advertisement It added that 'work is underway to meet with staff and volunteers to better understand everyone's perspectives and explore a thoughtful, collaborative approach.' Bellis said she's been surprised by the amount of resistance and stonewalling she's encountered from the City of Vancouver on what she considers to be a no-brainer. 'It's very heartbreaking, and for me it's been extremely frustrating because the solution is so easy,' said Bellis.
BBC News
13-03-2025
- Science
- BBC News
More than 1,100 trees planted through Shropshire flooding scheme
More than 1,100 trees have been planted around the Rea Brook in Shropshire as part of a flooding management scheme. Volunteers and contractors have planted specially selected species alongside the waterway as part of a Severn Valley Water Management Scheme (SVWMS). The Rea Brook project aims to create nature-based flood management schemes that will be able to hold back water and enhance habitat and biodiversity. Severn Rivers Trust is delivering the scheme which will be managed by Shropshire Council. Cecila Young from the Severn Rivers Trust said: "It's particularly vital for trees to be allowed to grow alongside rivers, the backbone of the landscape, to deliver multiple benefits."Trees planted along rivers and across sloping land can absorb extra water and mitigate flooding, they can intercept heavy rainfall, reducing the speed at which surface runoff reaches the river, and the underground networks created by tree roots contribute to higher infiltration rates of soils. "Water that is absorbed into the soil recharges aquifers, rather than running into rivers and potentially causing floods."Volunteers planted a total of 1,132 trees over three sites in the Bellis, Shropshire Council's drainage and flood risk manager, said: "The SVWMS Demonstrator Programme is delivering initiatives that will make a real difference to water management in the Upper Severn catchment area."It will report its data to inform the wider SVWMS strategy which seeks to develop a holistic approach to water management in the catchment, ensuring resilience for local communities and those further downstream." Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
When COVID Authoritarianism Met Border Authoritarianism (opinion)
When the World Closed Its Doors: The COVID-19 Tragedy and the Future of Borders, by Edward Alden and Laurie Trautman, Oxford University Press, 344 pages, $29.99 In late 2021, Charlotte Bellis, an unmarried journalist from New Zealand, found herself pregnant while working in Qatar, a country where that status carries the risk of jail time or deportation. A doctor advised her to get married or get out of the country. But New Zealand, which at that point still was taking drastic measures to limit the spread of COVID-19, allowed its citizens to come home only if they secured lottery-allocated spots in a government-run quarantine program. Bellis applied but was unsuccessful. Desperate, she turned to the Taliban. The Islamic fundamentalist group said yes. Bellis made her way to Afghanistan, where she had worked and where her boyfriend was based. "When the Taliban offers you—a pregnant, unmarried woman—safe haven, you know your situation is messed up," she wrote in The New Zealand Herald in January 2022. Bellis continued to ask the New Zealand government for permission to return home, concerned about the risks of giving birth in Afghanistan, but it kept turning her down. Only after New Zealand's largest newspaper publicized her story did the government change course. When the World Closed Its Doors, by Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Edward Alden and Border Policy Research Institute Director Laurie Trautman, is filled with stories like this, which remind readers of the absurd measures governments took to prevent the spread of COVID-19 across borders. These policies were ostensibly directed outward, targeting foreigners. But as is often the case with border controls, they inflicted damage internally too, infringing on citizens' rights and going hand in hand with domestic restrictions. Travel restrictions, which all of the 194 World Health Organization (WHO) member states deployed against COVID-19, may seem like a sensible pandemic response. It is easy to forget that the WHO had long viewed such measures as ineffective and counterproductive. Beyond doing little to stop contagion, travel restrictions can stop critical personnel and equipment from crossing borders. They also can foster secrecy. After South African scientists discovered the new, fast-spreading omicron COVID-19 variant in November 2021, many countries responded by imposing travel bans on South Africa and its neighbors. A government might conclude that transparency is not worth the economic damage of canceled flights and vacations. Countries responded to COVID-19 with travel restrictions because they were popular and relatively easy to enforce, Alden and Trautman argue. But many such rules were not evenly or ethically enforced. Governments drew the line between "essential" and "nonessential" reasons to cross borders in ways that were as arbitrary and dehumanizing as the lines they drew between "essential" and "nonessential" workers. Many, acting quickly in the early days of the pandemic, implemented heavy-handed restrictions with little thought about exceptions. The enforcement came down in uniquely painful ways on specific communities. Consider the predicament of Point Roberts, Washington. In the 19th century, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to draw the boundary between their territories along the 49th parallel, unaware that it crossed a small peninsula. A community of 1,200 people eventually grew on a patch of the U.S. that was physically disconnected from the rest of the country. Before COVID, residents of Point Roberts relied on Canadian medical care, tourism, and grocery stores. That all changed in March 2020. Strict crossing and quarantine requirements upended just about every aspect of life in Point Roberts. Canada announced that it would not exempt cross-border students from a 14-day quarantine period, so one family sent their child to live with Canadian friends during the school year. A Point Roberts resident who crossed the border to care for her elderly mother and disabled sister could no longer make the trip because it was deemed nonessential and subject to a 14-day quarantine period. The community lost 80 percent of its economic activity and saw little federal relief. Residents were all but barred from making the 40-minute drive to the nearest American town; it fell to Bellingham, Washington, to fund an emergency ferry to the U.S. mainland that cost $3,500 per day. Several countries imposed border controls so strict that thousands of their citizens were barred from coming home. At one point, it was a crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, for Australians to reenter their own country. Amid backlash, the Australian government announced that 4,000 citizens and residents per week could return. A year into the pandemic, about 40,000 Australian citizens were still stranded abroad. New Zealand's restrictions were perhaps the tightest in the world after North Korea's, as Bellis learned. "Prime Minister [Jacinda] Ardern became 'a global liberal icon' for doing what liberals had long denounced when the same measures were used by conservative governments—closing borders to keep out an external threat," write Alden and Trautman. For the first time, the authors argue, governments took the tools they had wielded against asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants and began to use them against their own citizens and the citizens of friendly nations. The quarantine quota system used in Australia and New Zealand pit citizens against each other for limited tickets home; America's green-card caps create similar scarcity among temporary visa holders hoping to adjust to permanent status and residents hoping to reunite with family members. Pandemic-era travelers could be turned away or let into a country based on factors as arbitrary as a border guard's discretion; asylum seekers face similarly uneven applications of the law when judges decide their cases. Celebrities were allowed to flout rules that kept couples and family members apart. The European Union initially tested tougher border controls in response to a migrant crisis, not a public health threat. But its actions during the former set precedents for how it would deal with the latter. When more than 1 million migrants from the Middle East and Africa sought protection in Europe in 2015, E.U. members implemented restrictions within the Schengen free travel area. Sweden and Denmark turned passport controls on one another despite a six-decade legacy of free mobility. France kept some of the measures from this period in place for years, later justifying them on pandemic-related grounds. While the European Commission did not oppose outward-facing travel restrictions as E.U. members responded to COVID-19, it urged them not to impose travel bans against one another. The call fell on deaf ears. In the U.S., meanwhile, the Trump administration used the pandemic to reinforce its border-tightening agenda. Top immigration adviser Stephen Miller had pushed the president to block asylum seekers by using the executive branch's powers under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which includes a public health provision authorizing "suspension of entries and imports from designated places to prevent spread of communicable diseases." Miller's efforts were finally successful when COVID-19 hit and the administration invoked that provision to expel migrants millions of times, often exposing them to dangers such as rape, kidnapping, and assault across the border in Mexico. The Title 42 order was not lifted by the Biden administration until May 2023. Those who lived through the pandemic are understandably reluctant to look back on the damage wrought by government responses. Most are ill-equipped to consider how harmful border restrictions were, given that their worst effects were felt by small subsets of populations. That reality, combined with laws that made it easy for governments to close borders for long periods, has encouraged policymakers to view travel restrictions as a valuable response to future crises. Alden and Trautman suggest three kinds of reform to safeguard people's rights: better international cooperation, checks on emergency powers, and improved risk management. Unfortunately, international conversations about how to reduce harm to border crossers during public health crises have stalled. Few courts have adequately scrutinized the scope of emergency powers. And governments have yet to reconsider the frequently faulty utilitarian logic they applied to questions of who should be allowed to enter a country and who should not. Tough border restrictions were a failure, Alden and Trautman conclude. Real solutions require far more thought and nuance than simply turning the state's power on people unlucky enough to be caught on the wrong side of a border. The post When COVID Authoritarianism Met Border Authoritarianism appeared first on
