ABSTRACT
Factory farming to produce ‘cheap’ meat is not only the biggest cause of animal cruelty on the planet, it is also a major driver of wildlife decline. As forests are felled, rivers polluted and soils eroded, ecosystems collapse; putting at risk the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.
In Sumatra, deforestation to make way for intensive palm plantations is destroying the last habitat of the orangutan, Sumatran tiger, rhino and elephant. Large quantities of palm kernel, the edible nut from the trees is shipped out to feed intensively farmed cattle and other animals, particularly in the European Union. All over Europe and the US, farmland birds are in steep decline. Again, industrial farming is largely to blame. It’s not just birds. In the last 40 years, since the widespread adoption of factory farming, the total number of wild mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish worldwide has halved. In Brazil I watched the lungs of the Earth disappearing as cattle ranching and soy monocultures expand. So, what is all this soya for? It’s to feed factory farmed animals, many of them in Europe.
Vast quantities of fish are caught, not to feed people, but to be ground down into fishmeal to feed factory farmed fish, chickens and pigs, leaving wildlife such as penguins and puffins starving. Scientists predict that most of the world’s fisheries will be depleted by 2048. Nature’s Great Disappearing Act is playing out across the world’s bays and oceans, forests and grasslands, to the detriment of both farm animals and wildlife. As consumers, we can take action through our food choices; by choosing to eat more plants, less and better meat and dairy from animals that are pasture-fed, free range or organic. We also urgently need a global agreement to replace factory farming with a regenerative food system.
