SYDNEY, Monday 16 September 2024 – Cattle Australia has today released its own definition of deforestation, which Greenpeace Australia Pacific has slammed as completely out of step with global best practice.
“On both a global and local scale, this definition is completely hollow, and will allow Australia’s destructive deforestation rates to continue,” said Gemma Plesman, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“The definition is alarmingly narrow in scope and completely at odds with the direction that retailers like Aldi and Woolworths, and major global economies like the EU are heading.”
Australia has one of the world’s worst rates of deforestation, driven mostly by the beef industry. Every year 100 million native animals are killed from this destruction as threatened species habitat, including the iconic koalas’, is bulldozed at a rate of knots.
A recent Greenpeace investigation has found that in just five years, 668,000 hectares of koala habitat was bulldozed by the beef industry for pasture — 2,400 times the size of the Sydney CBD.
“It’s jaw-dropping that this is the best the beef industry could come up with after months of consultation. It lets the destruction continue at its current rate and addresses absolutely nothing.”
“This definition denies there is a problem with the current globally significant scale of destruction in Australia’s forests.
“Any meaningful definition of deforestation must include threatened species habitat and regenerated forest in line with widely accepted, global best practice approach. To ignore vital habitat for the endangered koala, for example, will not pass muster.”
“The good news is that we already have the solutions. It’s only a relatively small number of operators doing most of the damage.”
“The Australian beef industry can eliminate deforestation from the entire supply chain and be a leader in responsible beef production — this should be the focus of the industry, not continuing to deny a very serious problem.”
—ENDS—
High res images and footage of recent deforestation can be found here
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Nelli Stevenson on 0481 303 815 or Frankie Adkins on 0402 316 996 or email [email protected]