MEDIA ADVISORY

28 March 2007

Meat Eating Implicated In Climate Change

Actions planned. Website launched to save Earth.

This week the New Zealand meat industry will celebrate 125 years of farming and exporting meat to the world. To mark the occasion Federated Farmers, Meat & Wool New Zealand, the New Zealand Meat Industry Association, the New Zealand Pork Industry Board, Deer Industry New Zealand, Retail Meat New Zealand, the New Zealand Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau and even the Minister of Agriculture, Jim Anderton, will attend a two-day conference which starts on Friday in Wellington.

National animal advocacy organisation SAFE believes the mass loss of life, immense level of animal suffering and the significant contribution to global warming caused by the meat industry deserves a different type of recognition than a celebratory party.

SAFE has launched a new website highlighting the benefits of a meat-free diet. SAFE intends to challenge the meat industry on Friday by highlighting that meat eating is a bigger threat to life on earth than the war on terrorism.

The meat industry will be implicated in contributing to acid rain, cancer, starvation, air pollution, animal suffering, deforestation, land degradation, water pollution, animal slaughter, soil erosion, obesity, diabetes and species’ extinction.

Livestock production is the leading cause of land degradation.

Globally, livestock production accounts for 64 per cent of ammonia emissions, making it the most significant contributor to acid rain.

It takes 60 per cent less land to produce the same amount of plant protein compared to meat protein.

Livestock farming is the far greatest threat to New Zealand’s environment than all other causes of pollution combined.

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