A
recent report on a 20-year study commissioned by the Queensland
government has revealed that 91% of all tree clearing has been done for
livestock grazing. Leading the research team was Mr. Gerald Bisshop,
retired principal scientist of the Queensland Department of Environment
and Resources Management, and our Association member.
The
study’s data collection through satellite imagery and field research has
yielded a picture of forest devastation in which trees were torn from a
vast 270-square-kilometer area in a state that once boasted the largest
forested region in the country.
Gerald
Bisshop – Retired principal scientist – Queensland Department of
Environment and Resources Management, Australia, Vegan, Our Association
member (M): None of these trees have been used for timber, it’s
purely for grazing livestock. They might use the bulldozers to break
them and burn them in a pile.
Or they might inject the trees with
poison, they call that stem injection, to kill the trees, or they might
use aerial poison to poison the trees from an aircraft. All of these
kill the trees so that grass can grow to feed the livestock.
VOICE:
A new paper by Mr. Bisshop includes a comprehensive evaluation of
environmental risks across all of Australia, finding that livestock
raising was the major factor in every area of impact.
Gerald Bisshop (M):
We looked at what was driving deforestation; what was driving loss of
biodiversity; what was driving soil degradation; what was driving soil
loss in Australia; what was driving water quality loss in Australia and
we found that there is a common cause. The common cause is land clearing
for raising livestock.
VOICE: According to Mr. Bisshop, in
Queensland, despite local tree planting efforts, 100 trees continue to
be cleared for every tree planted. Thus, the solution to many of the
environmental problems, as well as global warming, would be to stop
clearing the land for livestock.
Gerald Bisshop (M):
The re-growth in Queensland would quickly reverse the tree clearing. In
other words, if the trees aren’t re-cleared then nature bounces back
very quickly. So, we would see not only the emissions from the tree
clearing stop, but we would see a reversal of that because the growing
trees take up more carbon dioxide themselves.
VOICE: Our
appreciation Mr. Bisshop and Queensland state for informing of this
alarming link from deforestation to livestock raising. May governments
and co-citizens quickly opt for the alternative of vegan food production
and consumption to protect our Earth.
In an August 2009
videoconference in Thailand, Supreme Master Ching Hai emphasized as in
previous times the need to safeguard the planet’s trees from clearing
for livestock-related activities, especially to help stop global
warming.
Supreme Master Ching Hai:
Forests also play a tremendous role in absorbing CO2. For example, the
forests in the Pacific Northwest region of the US are able to absorb
half of all the emissions of the state of Oregon, USA.
So we
should protect our forests as well, especially from clearing for cattle
grazing and for animal feed growing, because these activities even add
back many times more greenhouse gases.
Most of the deforestation in
our world is due to animal raising, taking up a staggering one-third of
the entire land area on the globe!
So to be veg is a way to not
only eliminate significant emissions, but to absorb even more carbon
from the atmosphere.It is a true solution, yes, and it is the most
effective way to save the planet.
http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/slats/report.htmlhttp://www.derm.qld.gov.au/forests/saleable_products/forest_industry.html
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