Why Vegan?

ENVIRONMENT

Every year 31.57m of our tropical rainforest are destroyed for their hard wood, to grow cash crops, or to ranch cattle.Grazing animals, principally cattle and sheep, contribute directly to soil erosion and imbalance - devouring tree seedlings and compacting the surface. If forest is harvested sustainably for fruit, latex and timber, the projected economic value of one hectare of Peruvian Amazonian rainforest is around US$6820 per year, but if cleared for cattle pasture it would be worth just $148. The land itself quickly becomes impoverished through the washing away of the nutrient-rich topsoil. Moreover, the greenhouse effect is aggravated by the burning of forests for livestock grazing, releasing the CO2 'locked up' in the vegetation.

In 1996, agricultural water pollution incidents - the most common being the effects of cattle slurry - comprised 10% of the total reported. Slurry enters water courses, contributing to fish deaths, deoxygenation and algae blooms.

Ammonia (which is an element to form acid rain), dust and bacterial toxins regularly reach high enough concentrations in Europe's farm buildings to harm both farm workers and animals. Airborne levels of ammonia frequently exceed recommended safe levels of 20 parts per million (ppm) for people - in both poultry houses and piggeries.

RESOURCE USE

Animals are inefficient converters of plant material into protein - more people can be fed if plant protein is consumed directly rather than wastefully passed through farm animals for conversion into meat. Currently, around 1/4 of worldwide cropland is devoted solely to producing grains and other feedstuffs for livestock, and a massive 38% of the world's grain is fed to farm animals. In Britain, 340 000 hectares is devoted to growing feed for beef cattle. Ruminant livestock - principally cattle and sheep - graze (and degrade) around half the Earth's total land area.