BY JORDI CASAMITJANA JORDI Casamitjana, the author of the book “Ethical Vegan”, looks at how much the British landscape could be considered “vegan-friendly”. I remember well the first time I travelled through the British Islands. When I emigrated to the UK in the early 90s, I went straight to London — as most immigrants do. Because I could not speak English, I survived the first months doing very low paid jobs. But I did not give up trying to find work as a Zoologist, so in addition to sending many letters to any potential employers I could think of, I decided that I would hitchhike through the British Islands trying to find a suitable job for me. The reason I chose hitchhiking was mostly economical, but it also forced me to have conversations — in my broken English — with whoever was trusting enough to offer me a lift. I thought that would be far more effective than just 76
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sending letters that would never get any reply. I asked every driver whether they knew anybody that would need a Zoologist like me. And, as you can imagine, most of the time the answer was “no”. However, eventually, after having hitchhiked through most of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, someone in Cornwall answered “yes” — and this is how I ended up working at The Monkey Sanctuary in Looe and settling in the UK for good. But one of the interesting things that my hitchhiking adventures provided me with was the opportunity to see up close the different shapes and colours of the “green and pleasant land” the British countryside is traditionally described as.
Having grown up in the relatively arid Iberian Peninsula and under a very heated fascist regime, my experience of the British Islands were totally aligned with this stereotypical description. From what I saw, it did look pleasant and definitively looked green. That was one major appeal for me, so I did my best to find ways to stay, rather than moving to the next country if things did not turn out as I expected — as I had been doing so far. At that time, I knew very little of foxhunting and shooting, and how these fraternities had ruined these islands and stripped the “pleasant” attribute that only some outsiders still maintained — and by ‘outsiders’ I mean humans, horses and dogs that had not evolved in these islands as foxes, hares, deer