Name Ethical Bucket List
Location (Town/City) Liverpool/London, UK
How did you get involved in Ethical Bucket List? and how long have you been a part of the EBL group? Audrey Gaffney, Hazel Jones and Gary Simpson have all been involved in animal activism for many years. They met whilst campaigning against the UK ivory trade and decided to work together to raise awareness of the cruelty evident in much animal tourism/entertainment. The idea of Ethical Bucket List (EBL) was conceived to fill a niche in the travel and tourism markets with regard to animal rights concerns. Many regular review sites, such as TripAdvisor, etc, don’t moderate or question reviews. Most reviews concerned with animal ethics tend to be submerged within more reviews that are general in nature, and advice on animal rights issues and ethical choices is generally reactive and cursory. EBL has been set up to fill this void and is aimed at all tourists who may visit destinations, attractions and sanctuaries. EBL is aware that the level of knowledge about the ethics of using animals as a tool for entertainment varies greatly. The website, specifically the review process, is designed to be inclusive.
Why Ethical Bucket List? What’s your passion / driver? The passion behind EBL is to end the suffering of our most iconic/majestic animals. Wildlife tourism, where 550,000 animals are kept captive, is worth a staggering £200bn annually, . Three out of four of these animals are living in cruel conditions; a total of over 400,000 animals!! How can we know this and not do everything we can in our power to put an end to it? But ending the cruelty is only part of the story, we need to instil in people an awareness and a passion to protect these creatures for the future. This means a culture change in tourism that moves away from close contact with captive animals to a more unobtrusive appreciation of creatures in their natural habitat.
What is your aspiration for Ethical Bucket List? What do you hope you can achieve? The aim of Ethical Bucket List is to inspire travellers to opt for ethical choices in relation to animal tourism and to focus on restorative and conservation-focused animal projects. We will achieve this by raising awareness of the cruel realities that support much of the animal tourism/entertainment industry. A checklist with criteria is also available providing help in identifying which attractions may be unethical. Our ethical criteria will help travellers to share their experiences, both good and bad, to our platform, which will create a database of user-generated reviews. In addition to this, Ethical Bucket List will offer a free consultancy service to investigate potential destinations with regard to our ethical criteria.
