Campaigns

The power of our movement comes from campaigns and actions organised within our local communities. Effective campaigns have a real impact, securing victories and inspiring others to act.

There are three types of campaigns for local groups to engage in:

Supporting NGOs | National grassroots campaigns | Local campaigns

Supporting NGOs

  • Most national or international animal freedom NGOs have campaigns which can, and often should, be supported by grassroots communities. 

  • Some campaigns involve regularly using a specific tactic, such as WTF’s ‘Three Minute Movie Challenge’ or the Save Movement’s slaughterhouse vigils. 

  • Others might be short-running or even one-off events. 

  • Most organisations will have guidelines on how these events should be organised, and so you should refer to them for advice on how to support their campaigns.

  • Animal freedom NGOs which have campaigns that local groups can support include Animal Aid, Animal Equality, Animal Justice Project, Animal Rising, PETA, Plant-Based Treaty, and Viva!, but there are many more. Sign up for their newsletters and/or follow them on social media to get updated information on their latest campaigns.

National grassroots campaigns

  • Campaigns started by grassroots activists tend to allow for more local autonomy. 

  • Activists/local groups can decide for themselves what forms of protest they feel will be most effective, and what tactics and strategies are most suited to their communities.

We have provided a list of national grassroots campaigns you can get involved with, and we will keep it updated as far as possible. Please let us know any campaigns we should add:

    • The MBR Suppliers campaign aims to close down MBR Acres, an intensive puppy factory in Cambridgeshire that breeds 2,000 dogs a year for the UK research industry. 

    • The strategy is to convince all of their suppliers to join a national boycott. 

    • Within the first year of the campaign, over 40 suppliers have joined the boycott, MBR’s septic tank has been put out of use, their new offices remain half-built, and no company in the UK will supply them with heating gas, causing an internal crisis and secret meetings with the government to try to keep them open.

    The campaign is coordinated through a Facebook group.

    Here you can find: 

    • Contact details for all known MBR suppliers, including offices and facilities near you. 

    • You will also find action reports and ideas on how to protest against companies that haven’t yet joined the boycott. 

    • Action alerts for email communications, phone calls, and physical protests. 

    We suggest referring to our guide on how to organise protests to help with ideas of how you can get involved locally.

  • In 2026, the British greyhound racing industry turns 100. Within that time, the number of trucks has dropped from nearly 300 to less than 20. A significant portion of this decline can be attributed to local pressure from community groups protesting their nearest tracks. 

    The Shut Down campaign has brought a new wave of energy and focus to this issue:

    • As well as protesting against the tracks, they encourage local groups to launch pressure campaigns aimed at defunding the tracks and making them financially unviable. 

    • If enough local tracks close, it will make it easier for the government to ban the industry, as has been seen in New Zealand, Wales, and Scotland. 

    • If it isn’t banned, then the campaign will continue until all tracks are closed by community pressure.

    If you have a greyhound track near you, check out our guides on pressure campaigning and organising protests to get started. You can also reach out to Shut Down for more specific tips, advice, and ideas: link.shutdown.org.uk/signup.

    You can find a list of Britain’s greyhound tracks here.

  • This campaign aims to encourage the public to find animal companions from adoption centres rather than breeders, and to pressure companies such as Pets at Home to stop selling animals altogether. This would have a significant impact on the ‘pet’ trade, in which our fellow animals are viewed as breeding machines and commodities.

    • Check out our guide on how to organise a protest to take action outside your local Pets at Home. 

    • When engaging with the public, remember that you want them to agree with you and join a boycott, so stay polite. 

    • Many Pets at Home stores have vets inside too, so be sensitive to that as you talk to those going in and out.

    You can find out more about the campaign at: www.rescuenotretail.co.uk

  • Item descriptionThere has been an increased focus on opposing planning permission for new slaughterhouses and factory farms across the UK. This has been led by several national organisations under the banner of CAFF (Coalition Against Factory Farming), and is something you can organise locally.

    • Applying pressure to the local council/planning inspectors and winning the support of locals might prevent the planning from being granted. 

    • You can get some tips from our guides on organising protests, outreach, and recruitment. 

    • If this fails, you can launch a pressure campaign (see our guide on pressure campaigns) to make construction as tricky as possible, and potentially stop it from being built. 

    You can find out more about the campaign at: www.caff.org.uk

  • Abolish Fur Worldwide has a strategy to make the entire Louis Vuitton line fur-free. 

    • Focusing on one of their brands at a time and running pressure campaigns against them has already racked up a succession of victories.

    • The current focus is Berluti, and there is something for everyone to help with this campaign, both online and on the streets. 

    • In the UK, Berluti has three stores in London.

    For more information, check out: 

    www.instagram.com/afw.abolishfurworldwide

    www.facebook.com/abolishfurworldwide

Local campaigns

As well as supporting existing campaigns, you can also start your own. Focusing on local issues within your community:

  • Saves lives directly and effectively.

  • Builds local morale through regular wins from causes and issues that local campaigners are invested in.

  • Creates strong, skilled, and effective local groups.

  • Trains and empowers activists to become organisers locally and nationally.

  • Begins serious conversations in your community around animal freedom issues.

  • Normalises animal freedom campaigning and causes in your community.

  • Seeds campaigns that can become national, or even international.

  • Removes centres of violence towards animals from your local area.

  • Inspires others to action.

For more information on how to run effective campaigns, check out our guides on pressure campaigning, organising protests, and outreach. 

We have provided some ideas for local campaigns. These are separated into ‘easier’ and ‘longer-term’. If you have capacity, we recommend running one longer-term and at least one easier campaign at a time. This allows for consistent victories, which shift local opinion, maintain morale, and save lives.

Easier campaigns:

    • Fur farming was banned in the UK, but the import and sale of fur have unfortunately not been outlawed yet. 

    • There are still some shops in many towns and cities that sell fur. 

    • There are very few left that only sell fur, so in most cases, a local campaign would be aiming to stop them from selling a single product or range rather than closing them down entirely.

    • This makes it a lot easier and means you can secure fairly quick yet meaningful wins for your community.

    • Foie gras is produced by force feeding ducks or geese until their livers become inflamed and diseased. These livers are then made into pate. 

    • While there is no ethical way to farm or kill an animal for human pleasure, this is a practice that is banned in the UK and can ensure very quick wins to boost morale, and also begin wider conversations about the way we treat our fellow animals.

    • Pressure can be put on restaurants and boutique food stores that stock foie gras to convince them to remove it.

    • Despite the significant swing towards plant milk consumption (almost a quarter of British people drink them), some cafes still charge an extra fee for choosing them. 

    • This adds a barrier to many people who might want to choose, or even just try, plant-based milks. In doing so, they are stalling the uptake of plant-based milks and supporting the dairy industry’s grip on the market. If we want a vegan world, then we have to make vegan food accessible to as many people as possible.

    • While our goal is to have no animal parts served in any establishment, encouraging local businesses to remove their plant milk surcharge (and perhaps even introduce a dairy surcharge) can secure quick victories and take us one step closer to a plant-based future.

Longer-term campaigns:

  • Across the UK, there are zoos, aquariums, fairs, exhibitions, safari parks and circuses that force our fellow animals to live in soulless prisons and perform degrading tricks for human entertainment.

    Depending on the situation and your group’s capacity, you may want to:

    • Close a permanent site down

    • Secure the release of a specific individual or species

    • Or prevent a travelling event from coming to, or returning to, your area.

    For more information on different forms of exploitation related to entertainment, please visit: freedomforanimals.org.uk

    Unfortunately, zoo licences are only released to the public when they are requested under the Freedom of Information Act, but you can find the 2018 list here.

  • Hunting wild animals for sport was, in theory at least, banned in 2004. However, hunting foxes and other forms of blood sports have continued. While the average age of Britain’s hunters has continued to increase, and the number of supporters has noticeably declined, it remains a serious issue for our wildlife.

    • One way to campaign against hunts is to actively sabotage them and try to prevent them from killing wildlife. To learn more about hunt sabbing, to see if you have a local hunt sab group, or to start one, please visit: huntsabs.org.uk.

    • You can also launch pressure campaigns to close down your local hunts by identifying their sponsors, fundraising events (such as point-to-point races), suppliers, landowners, and any businesses attached to them. Use our pressure campaigning guide for more information.

    You can find your nearest hunts here: wildlifeguardian.co.uk/hunts

  • There are many laboratories and breeding establishments across the UK. Many large universities have animal research departments, as do numerous pharmaceutical companies and some military compounds.

    There are several campaigns you could launch:

    • The most ambitious is to close down a facility entirely. This is best suited to facilities that only (or almost entirely) breed animals for laboratories, conduct testing on animals, or supply vital services to the industry. 

    • The second option is to halt the company's involvement in the research industry. This is most suitable for companies for whom animal research is only a part of their business model. 

    • The third choice is to encourage an establishment to end a specific type of testing, or on a specific species. While this doesn’t take us to our longer-term goals of ending testing on animals, it is a good stepping stone to take us there. This option should be taken if you feel it is what your group has the capacity for.

    Unfortunately, the animal research industry is notoriously secretive. Unlike all genuine branches of science, they refuse scrutiny, peer review, or objective testing. As a result, there are no lists of UK research facilities available to the public. The best ways to find them in your area are web searches and word of mouth.