Wim de Kok

Wim was co-founder ­­­and President of World Animal Net, based in Boston, US. Originally from the Netherlands, where he grew up on a dairy farm, he joined a farm animal welfare organisation and applied his campaigning skills that he had honed as a rebellious high-schooler in the 1970’s. Working in animal welfare all his life, he founded a number of animal protection organisations and coalitions in the Netherlands and later internationally: most notably, the Anti-Fur Committee which ended fur sales and, helped by Covid-19, has been instrumental in closing all fur farms in the Netherlands.

He was also founder of the Dutch Animal Coalition assembling 20 prominent groups. Internationally he initiated the global NO FUR campaign (before the internet) with materials in 22 languages. Later he co-founded World Animal Net and the European Alliance of Rescue centres and Sanctuaries.

The formation of the World Federation for Animals together with others is his collaborative latest project. The Wim DeKok Animal Rights Collection at the Special Collections Research Center of the North Carolina State University Libraries consists of 13 metres of archives available for historical research.