Biodiversity and Meat Consumption featuring Danielle Nierenberg
Biodiversity and Meat Consumption
Official Session at the Green Week Conference 2010
Featuring Worldwatch Senior Researcher Danielle Nierenberg
Thursday, June 3, 2010
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Charlemagne Building
Brussels, Belgium
Speakers
Danielle Nierenberg
Senior Researcher, Worldwatch Institute
Carolyn Opio
Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization
Henk Westhoek
Progamme Manager Agriculture and Food, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Livestock rearing has an impact on valuable habitats and puts biodiversity and sustainable land use under pressure. The ongoing rise in meat consumption around the world is increasing these harmful effects. It is predicted that our current global meat consumption of around 280 million tons per year would double by 2050 due to growing population and higher incomes. This increase has been nourished by the proliferation of concentrated factory farms, with some 80 percent of growth in the livestock sector coming from industrial production systems that consume vast amounts of feed and energy and may lead to direct competition for scarce land, water and other natural resources.
At a time when grazing land and feed crop production occupies 30 percent of the land surface of the planet, this session will look at the myriad side-effects, from loss of biodiversity, deforestation and algae blooms to the acidification of terrestrial ecosystems and emissions of greenhouse gases. The session will examine what the future holds, asking how the demand for meat and thus animal food products can be balanced with the demand for environmental services.
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Biodiversity and Meat Consumption featuring Danielle Nierenberg