‘It is time for a new law on ecocide to go alongside genocide and the other crimes against humanity,’ says Michael Mansfield QC

Eating meat could become illegal due to the ecological damage it does to the planet, a top British barrister has said.

Michael Mansfield QC believes the government should introduce tighter legislation to make activities which destroy the natural world illegal – and in the future this could even include banning the consumption of meat.

Michael Mansfield QC (pictured) believes the government should introduce tighter legislation to make activities which destroy the natural world illegal ( Getty )

“There are plenty of things that were once commonplace that are now illegal such as smoking inside,” said Mansfield, who will present his ideas at the Labour party conference on Monday.

“We know that the top 3,000 companies in the world are responsible for more than £1.5tn worth of damage to the environment with meat and dairy production high on the list. We know that because the UN has told us so.

“I think when we look at the damage eating meat is doing to the planet it is not preposterous to think that one day it will become illegal,” he said.

Currently 25 per cent of global emissions come from agriculture, with livestock contributing to 80 per cent of that.

Industrial agriculture relies on fossil fuels to create fertilisers and machinery to harvest crops and transport animals. Farmed animals also produce half of the world’s methane emissions. Research last year found that meat and dairy companies could overtake the oil industry as the world’s biggest polluters by 2050.

“It is time for a new law on ecocide to go alongside genocide and the other crimes against humanity,” (Michael Mansfield).

The top QC will be making a speech at the launch of the Vegan Now campaign at the Labour party conference where he will be sitting on a panel of experts debating the damaging effects of livestock farming on biodiversity and climate change. 

Juliet Gellatley, director of animal rights group Viva!, who will also be on the panel, said: “Thirty years ago people didn’t bat an eyelid if you lit a cigarette in a pub or restaurant. But now society accepts smoking is harmful and totally unnecessary and so we legislated against it. The same could happen with eating meat.”

Experts behind the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found red meat had high greenhouse gas footprint because of the emissions livestock give out as well as the impact of land being cleared to grow crops for animal feed.

The report says we should be eating balanced diets with plant-based foods such as grains, vegetables and pulses, and animal-based food produced in sustainable systems.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/eating-meat-illegal-vegans-michael-mansfield-qc-labour-conference-a9115656.html

My comment: 51% of all greenhouse gases emitted worldwide are caused by livestock farming – more than by total worldwide traffic …. A scary fact!

The problem seems so obvious and it would be so easy to solve: Minimize or completely eliminate the consumption of animal products. For this we need a strong campaign against meat consumption, as in the anti-smoking campaign.

Unfortunately, the problem is swept under the table, everything is twisted or downplayed, people are being manipulated, as the reality of climate control would not be accepted. No attempts are made, and if any at all, then the most absurd, and as always at the expense of the animals.

This goes to such perversions that a part of the flank is surgically removed from the cows and replaced by a glass plate just so that one can better observe the processes of methane production.

The fact that humankind’s “enjoyment” of animal products is more important than an intact climate is frightening evidence of the irresponsible and primitive thinking of our species.

My best regards to all, Venus

From the portal http://www.netzfrauen.org

It all started in Thailand. A Thai supermarket had come up with an ingenious way of reducing plastic packaging: instead of using plastic banana leaves.
When the supermarkets in Vietnam found out about this ingenious idea, they too took part. Fruits and vegetables are simply wrapped in a banana leaf and wrapped in a flexible bamboo. Banana leaves are a great alternative to plastic because the leaf is big, thick and supple enough and can be folded. Instead of throwing away the banana leaves, they are now meaningfully used.

How quickly such ideas are implemented, now also show supermarkets in the Philippines. In line with this environmentally friendly trend from Thailand and Vietnam, supermarkets are beginning to use banana leaves instead of plastic as packaging.
Usually in the net photos excite indiscriminately in plastic packed fruits or vegetables, but this time it was the other way around. Instead of throwing away the banana leaves, they are now meaningfully used.
Many countries in Asia have declared war on plastic and also return the plastic waste from Europe to the countries of origin.

It all started in March 2019 after a real estate company in Chiang Mai posted photos on its Facebook page showing the banana leaf packaging. And quickly gained worldwide attention.

Large supermarket chains in Vietnam such as Lotte Mart, Saigon Co.op and Big C have begun to implement the idea of Thai business and also experiment in their banana leaf business as a packaging alternative. According to the United Nations (UNEP), Vietnam ranks fourth in the world in terms of the volume of plastic waste entering the ocean. Increasingly, measures to reduce plastic waste have already been successfully implemented.

At least three supermarket chains in Vietnam are using banana leaves to wrap vegetables. Photo by VnExpress/Nghe Nguyen

“This is part of our plan to do something about plastic waste, and we hope we can use that idea for fresh meat as well,” said the supermarkets in Vietnam. Customers are excited: “When I see vegetables in these beautiful banana leaves, I’m more willing to buy larger quantities. I think this initiative will help the locals better protect the environment, “says one customer.

The United Nations Environment Program estimates that by 2050, 12 billion tons of plastic will be in landfills, the environment and the oceans. By the way, Coca-Cola alone uses three million tons of plastic packaging in one year and the other companies like Nestlé use millions of tons of plastic every year.

Many consumers here in Europe no longer want plastic packaging. Supermarkets and discounters are currently campaigning with numerous actions against plastic waste. Great!! thinks the consumer, but especially carrots and apples cost unpacked more than the comparison product in plastic packaging.

The use of banana leaves for wrapping food has a long history. In some tropical regions of Mexico tamales are wrapped in banana leaves. Hawaiians also use banana leaves for cooking. They are also used in Southeast Asia to wrap sticky rice.

https://netzfrauen.org/2019/09/28/plastic-13-2/

My comment: Some countries are really doing something to save the climate factually and with simple means! Although they are poor countries and not European.
We do not have bananas in Europe, but we have paper. Paper bags are available in most supermarkets in Germany so the customers can pack their food environmentally friendly.

And here is the problem!

Most do not do, plastic packaging is more comfortable and uncomplicated!
Measures must always come from the top and as a law, not as a voluntary alternative.
Because the climate problem is serious, very serious, and therefore can not be left to the free will of each individual.

So far, and despite 100,000 demonstrators at the strike demonstration in Berlin, we  remain patriotic on our German national sport: outrage!

The topic is on everyone’s lips, wich really is nothing other than to speak about FACTS:
Plastic is to blame
Factory farming is to blame,
Cars are to blame
Forest fire is to blame …
and nobody sees himself responsible for at least one climate killer.

An army of propaganda as a climate savior has suddenly appeared.
Some useless politicians think climate rescue is good, and a lot of unsuspecting but enthusiastic demonstrators are hoping this rescue will be through parade demos. Most do not even know what climate is and confuse it with weather.

Mass animal husbandry as a climate killer No. 1 is deliberately not addressed, only these militant vegans do it … bad, right? The outraged environmentalists are currently concerned with the Deus ex machina Greta Thunberg, the icon of the climate hysterics, whether she will finally be pronounced as saints or at least receive the Nobel Prize.

Of course, Greta will get a Nobel Prize.
Even Obama got it.

My best regards to all, Venus

From my collection – Lowland Gorilla 1999.

Regards Mark.

WAV Comment – my (Mark) e mail address does not include ‘Howlingwolf’ for no reason – I just love everything associated with ‘Canidae’ and will always speak out for their protection and better treatment.  Here below are a couple of ‘foxy friends’ who I photographed in my garden a few months ago.  It is to me, perfection – the ultimate.  Here below is a super interview with Chris who tells us all about the love for canids, which I hope everyone will find interesting.  Regards and big howls – Mark.

Dear Mark,

Chris Schadler is a wild canid ecologist who has studied and taught wolf and coyote biology and conservation for over 25 years. She has also raised sheep using only non-lethal methods of predator control. A force to be reckoned with, Chris has dedicated her time to Project Coyote as our New Hampshire and Vermont Representative, inspiring people with presentations about coexisting with coyotes and achieving landmark policy changes for wildlife. We are lucky to have such a multidimensional and dynamic woman in our pack!

I hope you enjoy this interview with Chris and feel inspired to share it with others.

For Wild Nature,

Camilla H. Fox
Founder & Executive Director

http://www.projectcoyote.org/ 

 ——————————————–

What led you to become a wild canid ecologist?

Back in the 1970s I had an opportunity to volunteer at the North American Wildlife Park Foundation, known as Wolf Park, in Battleground, Indiana. Dr. Erich Klinghammer, an ethologist, founded Wolf Park to study wolf behavior (back before scientists used radio telemetry to capture a pack and observe). My job was to spend a month socializing a wolf pup to humans so that, when he was reintroduced into the pack, he would not be aggressive to veterinarians and other handlers. I learned a great deal about wolf behavior from this experience. When I began graduate study at Antioch in New Hampshire, my thesis focused on the failures of wolf reintroduction in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the benefits of natural reintroduction when wolves wandered onto the Peninsula from Wisconsin. Concurrently, I was learning to live with coyotes while I farmed sheep in southern New Hampshire.

As Project Coyote’s New Hampshire and Vermont Representative, you frequently give presentations titled, “Becoming Wolf: Eastern Coyote in New England.” Please tell us what you mean by this and what you see happening with wild canids like coyotes on the East Coast.

On its most granular level, the eastern coyote has wolf DNA (and often some dog DNA), which gives the species more options than its western cousin. Habitat here is prime for a top predator (of deer and moose). Even though the eastern coyote still depends upon rodents, the larger the coyote becomes the better it is at hunting larger prey. The eastern coyote appears to be evolving and adapting to take advantage of the east’s coast abundant larger prey. With every deer taken down by a pack, the definition between coyote and wolf blurs. Will we better tolerate a wild canid with the name “wolf” than one called “coyote”? Some have suggested we call the eastern coyote “coywolf” and many canid researchers are debating this issue as we watch this incredibly adaptable and intelligent wild canid continue to evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

You have raised sheep in a region with abundant predators. How do you protect your livestock from predators and do you have any lessons you’d like to share with other New England ranchers?

The farm I bought had lost many sheep to coyotes. I wanted to see if I could change the culture of the pack to no longer recognize sheep as its primary source of food. The average lifespan of our coyotes is about 3-4 years so I dedicated myself to intensive hazing (using harmless scare tactics to encourage wariness of humans) and protection of my flock. I never left the sheep out at night; they lambed in the barn, and their waste was buried and limed. I only used 4’ livestock fencing with no electric, but I checked the fencing every day and my dogs marked the perimeter of our property. If I saw a coyote anywhere nearby, I would haze and chase them until they stopped looking back at me. While my chosen hazing techniques were initially labor-intensive, I haven’t lost a sheep in 20 years. Within 4 years, the coyote young and yearlings were preying on rodents and also deer and carrion (animal carcasses) in the winter.

You were involved in the 2016 effort to ensure that the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s proposal to open a bobcat baiting, hounding and trapping season did not pass. Please tell us about this successful campaign and the coalition you co-founded as a result of it.

My writer friend John Harrigan and I had been talking about the problems with the Fish & Game Commission and we were fed up with having no voice in how wildlife was “managed” in the state. Essentially, non-consumptive users of wildlife are not well represented on the Commission. Our F&G is tasked with more than their dwindling budget can support so they had begun dipping into the General Fund to keep the Department going—which is basically “taxation (on the general public) without representation (on the Commission).” An earlier audit of the Department had recommended broadening the base of representation on the Commission which, they thought, would open “doors” for more money from the public.

Then came the bobcat debate. We worked with Voices of Wildlife to broadcast how the bobcat, with protection under the law, was beginning to make a comeback and how the F&G Commission, bowing under pressure from a few trappers, proposed opening a bobcat hunting season. It inflamed the public. A flurry of letters to the editor, op-eds, and calls and emails to the legislature by thousands of citizens in response to the possibility of a bobcat hunt seemed to shake the legislature and they shot the proposal down.

Buoyed by the public response, we wanted to push further for broadening decision-making responsibility on the Commission and finding sustainable funding for the Department so that the agency would no longer be beholden to trophy hunting and trapping groups. We founded the New Hampshire Wildlife Coalition as a vehicle by which to accomplish this goal, and are working hard to that end.

Can you share a bit about the mission and priorities of the New Hampshire Wildlife Coalition and your efforts to reform state wildlife agency governance?

Go to www.nhwildlifecoalition.org to check out who we are and what we’re about. Our efforts to reform state wildlife governance got off to a great start when the bill we generated passed through the legislature. The bill was for a Governor’s Study Commission to examine the recommendations of an audit done on NH Fish & Game in 2008. The audit recommended broadening the base of the F&G Commission to include members of the general public so that funding from the public, now represented in wildlife decision-making, would be forthcoming.

The F&G Commission ignored the audit and our bill forced a reckoning with it.  However, lawmakers changed the bill language to focus only on the financial aspect—how to get more dollars into the F&G budget. They stacked the Commission with hunters, and there was only one of us on the Commission pushing for a look at broadening public input.

If it didn’t hurt so much to do it, I would be laughing at the sham process of it all. We believe we were successful in protecting the bobcat because of the grassroots efforts of the citizenry; we don’t think there is a legislative solution here because of the entrenchment of our 400 representatives.

Vermont banned coyote killing contests in 2018, becoming the second state in the nation to do so. Do you think a similar ban is possible in New Hampshire and, if so, what are the necessary steps to get there?

I think it’s possible but would be a heavy lift in this “Live Free or Die” state. Coyotes are despised in New Hampshire, not just by the hunting group (although not all hunters hate them) but also by many citizens. There is substantial fear and misunderstanding surrounding the coyote—I blame NH Fish & Game for this. When you send out the message that coyotes “waste” deer and offer them for slaughter 365 days a year, people come to think of them as cockroaches with fur.

We face the same battles as Vermont, though, and the Coalition is beginning a grassroots effort to engage the public using Project Coyote’s documentary KILLING GAMES ~ Wildlife In The Crosshairs (tentatively beginning this fall). We can use all the hands we can get!  We are proposing a ban on killing contests involving all furbearers and birds and we plan to approach this from an ethical standpoint. It should be a no-brainer to disallow killing animals just for the fun of it.

Above – Chris speaking at Fox Forest Lecture Series, Henniker NH.

Do you see public attitudes changing on the East Coast with regard to predators and the concept of coexisting with them?

Yes. Now, let me remove my rose-colored glasses for a minute. I’ve been giving talks for 30 years and sometimes I wonder if we are any further along than we were back when I started. Actually, I would say the hill has become even steeper to climb. More people are growing chickens and other vulnerable stock and most folks don’t know how to protect them, or feel they don’t need to. The inevitable occurs and the coyote is always to blame. I’m so glad I have those 20 years of sheep farming to talk about.

On a brighter note, educators on every level are tuning into the important role of predators in natural ecosystems and more young kids “get it” than ever before. That’s encouraging. Also, after my talks there are always people who come up and tell me they’ve learned something and that they’ll spread the word. That keeps me going.

Above – Eastern Coyote (CC BY SA 3.0 Forest Wander)

Why did you decide to dedicate your time to Project Coyote?

I can’t quite remember how my relationship with Project Coyote started. Camilla has a great memory so she can fill us in on that! I know that she put me through some amazing interviews before she felt comfortable with me (I’m assuming she’s comfortable with me now!). During that process, I was struck by her seriousness, knowledge and commitment to change this situation for predators—how could I not be inspired to join her pack? Plus, knowing what I do now, I am honored to be among such imminent scientists and so many hard-working, dedicated, articulate and passionate people. The mission of Project Coyote has been my mission through my adult life. I only wish I had more time to give.

Mark — America’s bee crisis is getting worse.

Our nation’s beekeepers recently reported the largest recorded winter losses of pollinating honeybees ever — nearly 40 percent. Why are these once-thriving insects dying at some of the highest rates?

A catastrophic flood of highly toxic pesticides — neonicotinoids or “neonics” — pushed by Big Ag is a leading cause of this collapse. Studies show that neonics sicken and kill bees. Reckless use of these poisons threaten our food supply — and possibly even our health. We need to put a stop to it, and together we will.

NRDC is currently waging a courtroom battle against Trump’s EPA that aims to restrict the use of bee-killing neonic products that also threaten endangered species. But to save our pollinators, we need to stop bee-killing uses of neonics on all fronts — so we’re putting the pressure on the world’s largest manufacturer of these toxic chemicals, Bayer-Monsanto.

Mark, we’re amassing a groundswell of public pressure against Bayer-Monsanto and we need your voice to send a message to its CEO, Werner Baumann, that’s too loud to ignore. Sign our petition demanding they STOP selling bee killing neonic products!

Why is the decline of honeybees causing so much alarm? Well, the future of our food supply is at stake. In fact, 70 percent of the world’s major food crops rely on bees.

And the neonic pesticides made by Bayer-Monsanto are poisons designed to kill insects — and are so toxic that, even in minute doses, they weaken the immune and navigation systems of bees, as well as their stamina and memory, making them less likely to survive.

The European Union and Canada have already restricted use of these toxic chemicals, but Trump’s EPA has opened the floodgates for agrichemical giants like Bayer-Monsanto to make millions off this assault on our pollinators.

We’re taking on Trump’s EPA in court to restrict the use of bee-killing neonic products, but we need your powerful voice to send a loud message to Bayer-Monsanto: Stop selling these toxic bee-killing poisons.

Toxic neonic pesticides aren’t only harming bees — they could be harming us, too. Neonic residues are found in 86% of our honey, as well as on apples, cherries, strawberries, and can even be found in baby food. Federally-funded research suggests that exposure to neonics in the womb and by children could increase the risk of developmental defects, autism, heart deformations, memory loss, and muscle tremors.

But instead of protecting pollinators and our food supply, the Trump administration and his EPA are coddling big chemical companies and ignoring critical information about honeybee losses. The EPA approved continued use of these bee-killing neonic pesticides, which are already used on 190 million acres of crops, and the administration reversed bans on using neonics in all national wildlife refuges.

So while NRDC takes on Trump’s EPA and neonics in court, we need to also build public pressure on Bayer-Monsanto.

Sign our petition to Werner Baumann, Bayer-Monsanto’s CEO: the American people won’t sit by as our bees are poisoned and our health is threatened.

Thanks for taking on this agrichemical behemoth with us. Your voice is critical to our success.

Sincerely,

Mitch Bernard
President/Chief Counsel, NRDC