Ian Kelly

“My first job with the ILPH was linked to Romania back in 2000. Romania came to the fore again during investigations for the transportation campaign; Romania had become one of the main exporting countries of horses for slaughter into the Southern Europe. We went to look again, we were also asked by the Romanian veterinary faculties for advice, we made several visits and Project Romania evolved.

“The whole project is a joint-project between Campaigns and International Training; it is an enormous undertaking, logistically and practically, involving staff from all areas of the ILPH.

“There is huge satisfaction seeing a project really working. It is difficult in the first year of all our projects, because people are very suspicious of what is going to happen. We recognise this and let enthusiasm grow. We have a huge amount of knowledge that can be disseminated to help improve the welfare of the horses in Romania and of the people themselves.

“We want to help, as tourism increases in Romania, visitors will go to the markets and see the condition of the horses, they’ll ask us, ‘Why has nothing been done about this?’ We will be able to say, ‘We are here trying to help: by working with the government, the veterinary faculties, and the local farmers.’ We don’t want Romania to get a bad name, the traditional practice is not completely wrong but there is substantial scope for improvement.

“There are animal welfare issues in the UK, however, we have animal welfare legislation and enforce the law. The beauty of Project Romania is that it will contribute to establishing a sustainable infrastructure to protect animal welfare. We have had tremendous support for the project from officials and local people. Our project will introduce a training system for farriers and saddlers upon which a licensing system can be established; eventually people who progress after the five years project will become the testers or the inspectors for the following trainings. Much like what happens it England; farriers can’t work without being registered and saddlers also have an accreditation system.

In Romania there is a problem; people can’t set up a business unless they have a license. However, there is no infrastructure in position at this moment that can license saddlers or farriers. The old farriers and saddlers got their ‘license’ through tradition. You have farmers who are healing their own horses, farmers who are shoeing their own horses. There is also a problem that the current farriers and saddlers aren’t teaching any apprentices.

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