Jill Robinson
Animal Welfare Advocate
kindness in action
Jill Robinson MBE, Dr.med.vet. h.c., has worked to end the bear bile industry since 1993 and is one of the world’s foremost animal welfare advocates. In July 2000, Jill signed the first agreement between the Chinese government and an international NGO to establish a bear sanctuary in the country. In 2017, Jill signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Vietnam government to end bear bile farming in the country, one of the organisation’s founding goals. She founded Animals Asia, a non-profit which to date has rescued 699 bears, caring for them at its award-winning bear sanctuaries in China and Vietnam. Starting in 1998 in Hong Kong SAR, its current headquarters, Animals Asia has grown into a respected international NGO with offices worldwide.
I founded Animals Asia based on the values we stand by today: respect, empathy, courage and tenacity, summarized as “Kindness in action.”
I’m an explorer of a challenging landscape – tradition – searching for ways to stop animals being harmed whilst respecting cultural practices. Just as no successful land explorer would undertake a mission without local guides and knowledge, Animals Asia’s endeavors are in partnership with local people and stakeholders.
In 1993 I first saw a bear in a tiny cage being kept barely alive to have her bile painfully and repeatedly extracted for use in traditional medicine. With a few similarly committed people, I rescued the first bile bears in 1994, going on to create China’s first bear sanctuary in 1996, and rescuing bears ever since. I founded Animals Asia in 1998, with the mission to end cruelty to animals in Asia and promote respect for animals. With work continuing in China, in 2017 the Vietnam Government committed to join with us to end bear bile farming by 2026, and conserve Vietnam’s wild bear population. Today, 48 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces are free of bear farms.
“We are reducing demand for bear bile through a holistic approach that pioneers public education, demand reduction and bringing government, community and bear farmers forward together”
Sustained human behavior change lies at the heart of making a better world for animals. This is why our work at Animals Asia (AA), focuses on changing perceptions and inspiring others to become agents of change within their own cultures and communities.
It would be culturally insensitive for me – a western woman – to tell Vietnamese people to stop using bear bile products. Too often communities understandably double-down on traditional practices in reaction to being told what to do by outsiders.
Instead, we advocate for what has become our theory of change – a direction that has grown organically, informed by our experiences and learnings over time. We are reducing demand for bear bile through a holistic approach that pioneers public education, demand reduction and bringing government, community and bear farmers forward together to ensure that, when bear farming ends, it is ended for good. Our plant-based alternative to bear bile has been developed through collaboration with Vietnam’s Traditional Medicine Association, growing herbs in the gardens of schools, and joining a local business group Cocoon, now producing a humane herbal balm.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CLASS OF 2025