Violence can take many forms - religious intolerance, racial hatred, the institutional violence of a corrupt government. And then there is violence towards other species, as evidenced amongst other things by the factory and battery farming of animals.

What Judy Sole, the founder and leader of the SA Green Party, is calling for is a change of consciousness. She argues that it is a question of perception - of not caring about what we do not see. Our perception of the lives of animals, she says, is an illusion created by big business.

In her short documentaries on the exploitation of the earth's resources by big business, she tries to put this right. "Auschwitz for animals", she calls the suffering experienced by animals who are the victims of factory and battery farming. Her particular message to the Parliament of the World's Religions is that none of the major religions are advocating the proper treatment of the environment. She calls upon the religious leaders of the world to create a climate of non-violence to all sentient beings. A climate of non-violence to animals will automatically extend to non-violence towards human beings.

A diet with less meat would greatly decrease the suffering of animals and the burden placed on the earths resources. It takes 30 meals of vegtables to produce one meal of meat. When we do eat meat it is important to purchase "free range" meat. This insures that the animal has had a life with a modicum of joy and companionship. Factory animals are assured a life of unimaginable horror and pain.

The major religious traditions have not put animals on their agendas, says Sole, "yet none of the great masters would have condoned this suffering".

Report by Janneke Engelbrecht