In the last forty years almost 40% of all rain-forests have been cleared for livestock production.

Although up until recently most of the meat production has been to service the needs of the developed world, a new and more frightening scenario is developing.

As the economies of developing countries grow, in particular Asian countries, greater stress is put on the worlds food supply.Those who once could barely afford one meal a day are now eating two. The worry however, is that the extra money in peoples pockets now makes meat more affordable. What once was a luxury is now an everyday experience!

The consequences of this are not too difficult to work out. The greater demand for meat products inevitably requires further forest destruction to clear the way for livestock production. In fact, it has been calculated that the demand for meat will double by the year 2050.

How much more land will have to set aside to meet our future needs?

At the moment, we use 30% of the worlds soil for farming. There are already approximately one and a half billion cattle on the planet and nearly 1.8 billion sheep. If you understand that 70% of all agricultural land is used for raising livestock and that a third of all crop production is used for extra feed for animals – how are we going to plausibly cope with future demand?

The fact is we can’t continue going in the direction we have been without catastrophic results. Deforestation accounts for nearly 25% of global carbon emissions, nearly as much as the transport and industry groups put together. But it doesn’t stop there! greenhouse gas emissions produced by raising livestock (methane and nitrous oxide) are actually many more times damaging to our eco system, part for part, than CO2.

What makes the the problem greater is that deforested land makes for poor farming. People who farm this land often have to move on and clear more land just to maintain production. By the year 2050 there will be no tropical rain-forests left!

How do we stop this vicious cycle of deforestation? Only by acting together to cut the demands we are making and by helping third world countries restore the forests
they once had. When the demand stops the supply will dry up. In the West we already eat far too much protein than we need, just by halfing our intake of meat and following a green diet plan we can cut our carbon footprint a lot more than we can by giving up our cars! It takes just $100 to save 25000 sq feet of amazonian forest ( see arborday.org), enough to combat the effects of driving a car for about 14000 miles.

We can all do a bit to save our planet, we just have to start now!