Stop Live Exports

15/06/2026

Whilst the Australian Parliament has fortunately passed laws to end live sheep exports by sea from 1 May 2028, sheep are still currently being exported alive by the thousands for slaughter. Cows and other animals also continue to endure this same cruelty, but with no end in sight.

Live export subjects animals to prolonged confinement, extreme temperatures, rough seas, stress, and an increased risk of injury and disease during their gruelling journeys to importing countries. Many animals will die on the way, but they will all suffer.

No animal should ever have to endure this. It's time to end all live exports - for good!

Photo: Debra Edmonds / Stop Live Exports

13/06/2026

Today is Ban Live Exports: International Awareness Day. 🌍

Every year on this day, citizens and animal protection organisations around the world stand together for the millions of farmed animals transported live on long-distance journeys, by road, rail, sea and air, across countries and continents, for days and even weeks.

Why was this day created?

Compassion in World Farming launched this awareness day in 2016 to mark the one-year anniversary of 13,000 sheep who lost their lives on a single voyage from Romania to Somalia, dying from dehydration, starvation and exhaustion at sea. Ten years on, this trade continues. So does this fight.

What's happening globally right now?

This week, over 130 charities, celebrities and experts from 33 countries, including 66 animal protection organisations across 5 global regions and 65 academics and high-profile individuals, delivered an Open Letter to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). They are calling on WOAH's 183 member countries to strengthen the global standards governing live animal transport, standards that were developed more than two decades ago in 2005.

Separately, 50,000 signatures were handed to the European Commission this week, calling for a ban on live exports to conflict zones. Australian cattle have been approved to sail through active conflict zones this year — under the existing framework, this is legal.

Where does Australia stand?

Australia has legislated an end to live sheep exports by seam effective 1 May 2028.
That is won. But cattle, goats, and buffalo exports continue. The heat loading limits we're fighting to make law do not yet exist. The mandatory pre-slaughter stunning protections do not follow our animals beyond our borders.

The WOAH consultation closes in early July. This is a pivotal moment, what gets written into these global standards will shape the conditions millions of animals face for decades.

Today, three things:

🌍 Share this post with

🖊️ Add your name to the Open Letter to WOAH: https://www.ciwf.org/media-news/press-releases-and-media-statements/charities-celebrities-and-experts-urge-end-to-live-animal-exports/

📝 WA residents — sign our petition (closes 15 September): stopliveexports.org/get-involved/make-it-law-heat-policy-wa-petition

Animals are not cargo. 🐄🐑

NGOs and experts urge WOAH to strengthen animal transport standards and end live exports, citing avoidable cruelty, disease risks and repeated mass fatality incidents.

13/06/2026

A pivotal moment in global animal welfare policy and a direct opportunity to act 🐄🐑🐐

The World Organisation for Animal Health is currently revising its international standards on live animal transport, a framework last fundamentally written in 2005 that influences laws, trade practices and enforcement across 183 countries. The consultation closes in early July 2026.

Compassion in World Farming has coordinated an Open Letter signed by over 130 animal protection organisations, academics and high-profile individuals from 33 countries, calling for the new standards to reflect current welfare science and address the export of animals to conflict zones.

Add your name to the petition now and share to your followers tagging Compassion in World Farming &


https://action.ciwf.org.uk/page/193077/petition/1?

13/06/2026

The science has spoken.

In April 2026, the South African Veterinary Association (SAVA), the largest voluntary veterinary body in the country, released a formal position statement opposing the export of live animals by sea for slaughter. It draws on extensive peer-reviewed research, and its conclusion is clear: the welfare of the animals on these ships is unavoidably compromised.

The statement points to thermal stress, dangerous ammonia build-up, the physical toll of the ship's motion, and the risk of disease. SAVA found that these harms are built into every shipment, and that no regulation can remove them.

As our Consulting Veterinarian, Dr Bryce Marock, puts it: "The science has always been clear. What has been missing is the weight of the veterinary profession speaking with one voice."

That voice has now been raised. Follow and share to help more people hear it.

12/06/2026

Tomorrow, the world unites.

Sunday 14 June is Ban Live Exports: International Awareness Day, and this year carries more weight than ever before.

This week, over 130 charities, celebrities and experts from 33 countries signed an Open Letter to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), calling for urgent reform of the global standards governing how millions of animals are transported live across the world.

That letter (supported by 66 animal protection organisations across 5 global regions and 65 academics and high-profile individuals) has now been formally delivered.

Why does this matter? The standards WOAH is revising right now were last fundamentally written in 2005. They set the international benchmark for animal transport conditions across 183 countries. What gets written into those standards shapes the welfare of millions of animals for decades to come. The consultation closes early July, the window is open, and the global community is not staying silent.

Animals transported on long journeys face overcrowding, extreme heat, hunger, dehydration, injury and severe stress. They are not cargo. This trade causes immense, unnecessary suffering — and it must end.

Tomorrow, Stop Live Exports joins that global call. Here's how you can take action right now:

🖊️ Sign the Open Letter to WOAH: ciwf.org

📝 WA residents — sign our petition (open until 15 September): stopliveexports.org/get-involved/make-it-law-heat-policy-wa-petition

📢 Share tomorrow's posts with

We'll see you tomorrow. 🐄🐑

06/06/2026

🌡️ Australia's heat is now so extreme it's destroying entire farms.

This week, ABC News reported that scientists recorded 65°C at soil surface level and 55°C just 10cm above the ground during January's heatwaves. ANU Professor of Plant Science Owen Atkin put it plainly: temperatures like these "break the biology" of living things.

Crops are being wiped out. Coriander fields rotary-hoed under. Grapes literally boiling on the vine. Wheat rendered sterile by a single day of extreme heat. Farmers across South Australia and New South Wales are facing devastating losses, and scientists are warning this is only going to get worse.

Now we need to ask an urgent question.

If this heat is destroying plants, organisms that don't feel pain, don't experience fear, and can be replanted, what is it doing to sheep and cattle loaded onto live export vessels?

Animals sent on live export journeys spend weeks on crowded ships, travelling through some of the hottest shipping routes in the world, including the Middle East in peak summer, where temperatures routinely exceed 40°C.

They are confined in metal vessels that trap and amplify heat, with thousands of other animals generating body heat around them.

The science being reported right now tells us that extreme heat breaks living biology. It sterilises. It destroys. It kills.

Australia already knows this. Our farmers are living it.

It is indefensible to continue loading animals onto ships and sending them into conditions that we know, right now, this week, from our own scientists - cause catastrophic biological harm.

The heat doesn't lie. The science doesn't lie.

It's time to end live exports. For good. 🐑

📰 Read the full ABC News report: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-04/extreme-heatwaves-threatening-crops-food-supply-australia/106745486

Record-breaking heatwaves decimated crops in Australia this year and served as a "real wake-up call" for the urgent need to develop more heat-resistant crops and research into food security.

04/06/2026

Happy World Environment Day 🌍🌱

Live export is not just an animal welfare issue, it is an environmental and regulatory one.

Live animal carriers are among the most fuel-intensive vessels on the ocean per kilogram of cargo. The journey from Fremantle to the Persian Gulf burns thousands of tonnes of bunker fuel for tens of thousands of animals, most of whom will be slaughtered shortly after arrival.

Frozen and chilled meat exports (one alternative) have a fraction of the emissions per kilogram. Australia is already the world's largest exporter of sheep meat. Our boxed and chilled export industry is 70 times more valuable than the live sheep trade.

And once a live shipment leaves Australian waters, our regulatory power effectively ends. ESCAS is meant to ensure animals are handled, held, and slaughtered to a minimum standard. It has been breached repeatedly. The system is built on assurances. Assurances are not enforcement.

The transition is good for animals. It is also good for emissions, for biosecurity, for shipping safety, and for the long-term reputation of Australian agriculture.

Read more: https://stopliveexports.org/



Sources: ABARES 2024 sheep meat export data; Australian Alliance for Animals / Eurogroup for Animals citing ABARES figures (chilled and frozen sheep meat trade 58x the value of live sheep exports); RSPCA Australia — live export regulation overview (rspca.org.au); DAFF ESCAS compliance reporting.

04/06/2026

📢 Update on the live sheep export by sea ban | WA Transition Roadmap to 2028

The WA Roadmap to 2028, the government's strategy for transitioning the sheep industry ahead of the live export ban, was released this week.

The roadmap sets out broad goals for rebuilding the WA sheep industry but contains no timelines, no milestones, and no specific funding allocations from the $5M implementation fund set aside to support it. Even industry bodies like WAFarmers have raised concerns about the lack of accountability measures and how progress will be measured.

For the animal welfare community, this is worth watching closely. The May 2028 phase-out deadline is only 23 months away. A transition plan without clear benchmarks makes it harder to ensure the ban stays on track and that animal welfare improvements are actually being delivered on the ground.

We'll keep monitoring and posting updates as this develops. 🐑

Read more: https://www.sheepcentral.com/wa-roadmap-to-2028-launched-with-no-timelines-wafarmers/

A LACK of measureable timelines, milestones and deliverables in the WA Roadmap to 2028 for the Western Australian sheep industry has been noted by the state’s peak farmer body WAFarmers...Read More

03/06/2026

Where the Federal petition stands.

On 29 April, the Federal e-petition EN9635, calling for an enforceable temperature limit on live export loading, closed with 1,675 verified signatures.

It has now been formally presented to the House of Representatives and referred to the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister has 90 days to respond.

Each of those 1,675 signatures were verified through Parliament's own two-step process. Each one is an Australian who put their name to the proposition that loading animals in extreme heat should not be left to interpretation.

We are now in the response window. What the Minister says, or doesn't say, in the next 90 days will directly shape the next phase of our advocacy.

We will be watching, and we will share the response with this community when it arrives.

In the meantime, the WA Legislative Council petition remains open until 15 September. If you are a Western Australian resident and haven't signed yet, the link is below.

Thank you to every signatory. This is the record we asked Parliament to create. Now we wait for Parliament to answer it.

https://stopliveexports.org/get-involved/make-it-law-heat-policy-wa-petition/

01/06/2026

Right now, behind closed doors, Australia is rewriting the rules that govern live export.

The Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL) are under review. Version 4.0 is being developed and is planned for completion by late 2026. These are the minimum welfare standards that apply to every live export voyage from Australia, covering cattle, sheep, goats, buffalo, deer and camelids from sourcing through to disembarkation overseas.

Here is what the published scope of ASEL 4.0 does not include:
🔻Any provision for approving or reassessing voyages into active conflict zones
🔻Any guidance on welfare outcomes when Hormuz closes and voyage times extend significantly
🔻 Any framework for reviewing approvals when the security situation deteriorates mid-voyage

ASEL has never included these provisions. Version 4.0, as currently scoped, will not either.

We are months into a crisis where Australian live export voyages have continued to ports in active conflict zones, Aqaba in Jordan, Beirut and Tripoli in Lebanon, Ashdod and Haifa in Israel, all of which have been targeted by Iran, Israel or the US during the current conflict.

Despite ongoing public concern about the welfare implications of rerouted voyages, DAFF has not engaged publicly with the animal welfare community on this issue.

And the welfare standards review is proceeding as if none of this is happening.
ASEL 4.0 is one of SLE's most important regulatory advocacy opportunities of 2026. The live sheep trade continues until 2028. These standards will govern every voyage between now and then.

The review is open. Our voice matters. Now is the time to use it.