Cow (牛 ushi in Japanese) Km; an essay by R.J.B from Zama Japan, Nov. 2020
Japanese beauty leading an ox (an Egyptian version below); 2021 is Year of the Cow.
Hathor, Egyptian goddess of love also in manifestation as the cow, Hesat, providing humanity with milk (called “the beer of Hesat” which is ironic as beer is sometimes known as “milk of amnesia“).
Picture this: You’re strolling through the shade of a forest for a kilometre, taking in all the beautiful sights, smells & sounds of Nature. Then, one year later, all this is gone — cut down, just smoldering smoke… Your burger did that.
An average Australian household of four consumes nearly a kilometre of forest in the meat on their plates each year. Regular beef eaters alone do this in a year. How so? Because forest clearing rate for the last 20 years is about 0.44 million ha per year (Ref., Ref.: fig. below): “The vast majority of clearing in Queensland is for agriculture — over 90 per cent of cleared forest was replaced by pasture in the years 2016-2019”. As the number of meat-eaters in Australia is about 23 million (given that 2.4 m or 12% of the population avoid meat on moral, ethical or ecological/economic principles – Ref.), thus 90% of forest clearance consumed by 88% of the population is ~0.44/23 = 0.02 ha/person/yr. However, a 2010/2011 national report found that only 20% of non-infants surveyed had eaten beef on any given day, or roughly 4.4 million regularly eating beef: ~0.44/4.4 = 0.1 ha/beef-eater/yr. A tenth of a hectare is 1,000 m2 or a swathe of forest 1 m wide and 1 Km long…
Rate of forest loss equates to more than 1,500 football fields worth of native woodland & scrub cleared each day in Queensland (Ref.). Can it be that 20% of the population as beef-eaters, through greed or ignorance, is responsible for destroying 90% of Aussie forest? If so, a kilometre of forest lost in year is about 3 meters lost on each of 365 days of beef-eating; so cutting back -30%, or perhaps just one meal, is one metre of forest preserved per person per day. Kids should demand it of their parents, while the duty of caring parents or guardians should be to at least gift this for our successors’ heritage.
Of course, Australian forests have been cleared for agriculture and pasture for over 200 years so meat eating has arguably caused much more damage, and eating imported meat destroys forests elsewhere by transposed proxy.
In global context, about a football fields of Primary Rainforest was lost every 6 seconds in 2019 (Ref.), especially from the Amazon, Africa and Asia.
Already Australia is the most overgrazed of those countries not already desertified, but the whole continent is rapidly heading that way (fig below):-
If you, or someone you know, suffers from diabetes, heart diseases or stroke and some forms of cancer, it is probable that the burger did that too (Ref.).
An average Australian currently consumes 120 kg of meat per year, more than in any other country; they also have had the highest cancer rates, not counting melanomas. The following three graphics summarize correlation between excessive meat vs. Cancer (Ref., Ref.). Note: Carnivorous Australia topped both, whilst vegetarian India fares far better & fish-favouring Japan is mid-way, somewhere in between (see – vermecology.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/wormageddon-destruction-in-our-soils/) :-
[The latest shocking 2020 update cancer chart shows US/Canada much higher at around 5%, China doubled its rate and Japan, from about 1%, now joins UK & Australia with cancer raised to about 3% of the populations:-
The Cancer Council of Australia recommends a maximum 455 g red meat per week which is less than 25 kg per year total or about a 75% reduction. Sir David Attenborough’s latest Nature extinction docco, finally agreeing with what ecologists for years have been advising (Ref.), suggests we “cut” meat by 50% although the science report in Nature suggested western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% (Ref.) and another study recommended Australians cut meat by 97% (Ref.). Maybe a meat tax would help deter or defer some ecological/health/cruelty costs… (Ref., Ref., Ref.)?
As well as excessive meat & cancer rates Australia also has some of the highest global species extinction shame. “According to the CSIRO, habitat loss from land clearing [mainly for agriculture/pasture] is a primary driver of biodiversity loss in Australia” (Ref. – article that includes my Lake Pedder Earthworm extinction report Ref.). In addition, approximately 18.6 million ha of Australian forest (20% of all its remaining forests – Ref., Ref., Ref.) were destroyed in the 2019/2020 bushfires that were partly, or largely, due to climate change from land clearing and soil erosion mainly from intensive agriculture and beef/sheep farming. Fires may also be attributed directly or indirectly to excessive meat eating because trees, as well as providing shade & active cooling when photosynthesizing, produce between 30-90% of rainfall on land as well as drawing down atmospheric carbon at massive hourly, daily & yearly rates (but not when felled obviously) this compensated for by natural soil respiration at similarly large rates (Ref.).
Revised figures for Australia’s 2019/2020 bushfires estimate 3 billion animals or birds killed or displaced by the fires (Ref.). And, as invertebrates outnumber vertebrate animals ~1,000 to 1, this may be ~3 trillion in total.
An analogy is tobacco. If you smoke you may well get cancer, etc., you will be banned by law from smoking around other people in public and if your careless cigarette burns a Km of forest you will go to jail. So how come you can destroy Kms of forest by unthinkingly eating meat to excess? An ironic disconnect is that if you set fire to a tree in, say, Tokyo or London or Sydney, surely the police will arrest you. But eating your hamburger does this daily.
How much protein do we need and what is best or healthiest source (Ref.)?
One bite of a burger has already killed the cow, but also koalas, sloths, orangutans, earthworms, etc., etc., etc.; literally millions of innocent beasts.
A 2020 CNN report says: “We know from all the data we have for threatened species, that the biggest threats are agriculture expansion and the global demand for meat. Pasture land, and the clearing of rainforests for production of soy, for me, are the largest drivers — and the direct consumption of animals.”[184]
Yet, there is progress as, according to survey research by Roy Morgan, nearly 2.5 m Australians, just over 12% of the population, have adopted vegetarian or primarily vegetarian diets in 2018. But Aussies still eat three times more than the global average of about 43 kg/yr (Ref.). And, rather than the farmers’ or politicians’ faults, it is the consumers’ responsibility as other environmental organizations also advocate eating less beef so less forest clearance regionally or globally (Ref., Ref., Ref.). This is the heritage for children’s futures in an abundance of Nature, of a vibrant biodiversity and fantastic human health that are now being squandered for greed alone.
Hope and realization are in beef & mutton/lamb consumption gradually reducing (Ref., Ref.). So, if you still crave a burger fix, then there are increasingly more varied and delicious veggie/vegan options, without the health/ecological/moral damage…Bon Appétit or itedakimasu, e.g.:-
(Image: lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/our-food/frozen-range/vegetarian-mozzarella-14lb-burgers/ as an example of a non-meat burger option).
In global context, as eluded to above, Australia is a bit of a bit player to China, US or Brazil that export beef too (Ref.: fig. below). But each & everyone must do their best to preserve Nature for future generations.
Anyone claiming to care about climate or extinctions or human/animal health who still eats red meat is either ignorant or hypocritical (or both).
I have been to several international climate/eco meetings where delegates or presenters arrived in private cars (some with chauffeurs) then gorged on beef at the buffet. You can have cars or cows, but not both. Chews wisely… We simply must eat less red meat and demand organic food production, bearing in mind that a recent study showed organic meat is no less damaging than chemical/conventional production – www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/23/organic-meat-production-just-as-bad-for-climate-study-finds:-
Full disclosure: I personally have an interest in these needs for change in meat consumption as I grew up working on farms in Shropshire as a stockman/dairyman/farmhand for about 10 years so appreciate the gentleness and individual characteristics of cows. One bullock in particular stood out as he loved humans so much and always ran over to greet us; we called him “Herbert”. He would follow me around and put his chin on my shoulder. I can only hope the guys at the abattoir were kind & quick… My BSc study was on organic farming, but my agroecological PhD with CSIRO (Ref.) in the 1990s was based in Queensland looking at earthworms partly in pastures of Brigalow lands that were the classic example of forest clearances by fire & with chains between two bulldozers. Ironically, the whole time I was not a meat eater…
I fully stopped eating red meat in 1983 thanks to Marian’s sound advice (;p) while increasingly more school mates who lived or worked on non-organic, agrichemical farms have already sickened or died of cancer.
VermEcology 
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