The chairman of Property Rights Australia, Joanne Rea, today slammed our lead livestock organisations for being irresponsible from the outset in their dealings with WWF with respect to a sustainability programme.
“By delegating the responsibility for formulating the definition for ‘sustainable beef’ to WWF they have turned over one of the pivotal functions of the industry’s sustainability programme to an anti-capitalist, anti-profit, anti-farmer organisation,” Mrs. Rea said.
Cattle Council of Australia CEO David Inall, suggesting that it was “crystal clear” throughout negotiations that any sustainability programme introduced must be voluntary, is a waste of time.
WWF have perfected the technique all over the world of promising enough co-operation to get a foot in the door and then altering course to achieve whatever it is that they wanted, up to and including lobbying the government for introduction of legislation.
WWF has suggested that beef production should be carbon neutral. To attempt to impose a condition such as this is unreasonable, not required of any other industry and should have been dismissed out of hand. There is no activity in our modern lives that is carbon neutral. From going to work or the supermarket to eating even a vegetarian diet, carbon emissions are involved. Beef has been saddled with more than its fair share of blame for carbon emissions.
“Further, I would ask that all of the WWF websites that rely on data from the overblown and fatally flawed “Livestock’s Long Shadow” be removed and retractions printed,” said Mrs. Rea. “One of the author’s of this paper has himself conceded that the methodology used to compare the emissions of livestock industries and the transport industries was not comparable and severely disadvantaged the livestock industries.”
There are organisations whose responsibility it is to ensure that negative claims made about the beef industry are based on science and are not over exaggerated. They have failed in this and as a result the industry is being drowned in a vortex of dishonest publicity by conservation groups and self interested parties.
CCA’s solution is a partnership with the disseminators of this poor publicity based not on respect but fear.
For further information contact:
Joanne Rea, “Edangarry” KUNWARARA QLD 4702
Ph: (07) 49 356 231 Mobile: 0407 143 664 Email: ejrea@bigpond.com
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PRA is a non-profit organisation of primary producers and business people from rural
areas defending the rights of property owners
www.propertyrightsaustralia.org