The Indian animals federation

[Guest guest]

Friends, this is partly a reaction to the discussion that occurred on this list

some days back on the utility or otherwise of the Indian animals federation

listserve. Partly, this is also an attempt to clarify the original idea behind

setting up the listserve and to invite views on converting it to a mechanism for

disseminating animal related news originating from India.

 

Several of you were in Chennai for AfA in the immediate aftermath of which, a

meeting of Indian animal groups was held. During this meeting, it was resolved

that a federation of Indian animal groups be set up. A group of volunteers got

together to draft the possible structure of this federation and the modalities

of its functioning. This is now up at http://www.indiananimalsfederation.org and

is also available as a PDF document by writing to

mail .

 

The email group (fiapo (AT) googl (DOT) com) that has been under discussion on this

forum was set up as a means of communicating between constituents of the

Federation. When it was set up it was not intended to serve as a forum for

routine news about rescues etc. But then the Federation and by extension the

email group, is something that belongs to all animal groups in India and if

there is the majority view that supports a change in the policy of the

federation email list, that is something that can be readily discussed on the

list.

 

While the email list is moderated (and often an explanatory note is written to

the contributor whose post is being moderated), there is also a bulletin board (

http://fiapo.invisionplus.net/index.php?mforum=fiapo & s=f3b091d8d920750560de9b8c2\

44ade18 & act=idx ) that has been created to enable people to post material

without any moderation. This was basically to avoid flooding email boxes with

emails not immediately relevant to the objective of the email list and yet give

federation members a chance of sharing their promotional material such as

newsletters and so on.

 

The purpose of the listserve and the manner in which it is run is open to

discussion as are any other concrete measures that the Federation can take in

order to promote well being of animals. However, we like to continuously remind

colleagues from the Indian animal fraternity that the Federation is not some

abstract body . It is they who constitute the Federation. Therefore statements

like " the federation should do xyz " do not really mean much unless one is

willing to back it up with action. The Federation does not have full time staff

and can only undertake such action as its constituents are willing to put in

effort for.

 

I reckon the AAPN moderator will exercise his prerogative to judge how much of

the discussion that this generates should take place on this list and how much

otherwise.

Erika Abrams , Arpan Sharma

Volunteers, FIAPO