I have to write this piece, even as the battered soapbox of indignation is dragged out of the metaphorical dusty corner to centre stage I know I cant stop myself – I’m going to have to let this out.

Every now and again I loose my grip a little on my inner calm and there are a few common factors that stoke the embers of rage. I read with interest and great sadness the Ecologist article by Andrew Wasley and Josh Robbins a week or two ago and of course I am not in the least surprised or in fact shocked by the horrendous, seemingly systemic and callous breaches of animal welfare codes in our abattoirs.

The article states that some 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations have occurred over the past two years. And that number seems staggering when you assume that these don’t only happen during times of inspection – in fact they are possibly even more frequent when the watchful eye of authority is absent? I’ll refrain from making a leap of extrapolation here, it’s not necessary and rarely helpful.

But hold tight to the horses of indignation, rewind that tune selecta, let’s get this in context. Brace yourselves, I’m feeling a little brutal.

Now, 4000 breaches of welfare code over 2 years amounts to 2000 per year. Here’s some numbers for you courtesy of the Human Slaughter Association. Last year, the UK slaughtered for human consumption (remember these numbers exclude imported meat from as far away as South East Asia and New Zealand) approximately 2.6 million cattle, 10 million pigs, 14.5 million sheep and lambs and 950 million birds.

That’s around a billion animals. Excluding Fish. That’s a big number. A very big number.

Now this is not a defence, this is the beginning of the criticism. That we should be shocked by 4000 breaches of welfare by abattoirs is the problem. Really, we should be shocked by the vast number of overall kills. Now add to the mix the issue of an ever decreasing number of slaughter houses in the UK. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA), there were 13,000 slaughterhouses in Great Britain in 1938. This figure had fallen to 1,000 by 1986 and to 416 by 1999.

Today there are just 336  abattoirs registered in the UK. And with so many animals to be slaughtered, they often have to travel enormous distances to be killed. This in itself will be more stressful for the animals than if we had more, smaller slaughterhouses.

Slaughterhouses then are under immense pressure because of the volume of animals brought each day for slaughter. Many of them are giant, industrial buildings, specialising in a certain type of animal, notably pigs or chicken. We are treating animals like commodities rather than living creatures, so is it any wonder that breaches occur in the welfare codes?

I would venture it is inevitable, though still shameful, that these issues occur. The problem is far bigger than faceless men and women acting disgracefully in the slaughterhouse or whilst in the employ of a haulier firm. The real problem is a wilful ignorance and greed on behalf of the vast majority of consumers, the devaluing of meat within our culture and the endless, shameless and frankly irresponsible marketing of cheap meat by our larger retailers.

I am not a vegetarian, though I eat a lot of meat-free dishes, and certainly won’t eat meat that is of dubious origin. I don’t like to complain, or be the difficult one when out to dinner with friends and so, it’s simpler by far to order the vegetarian dishes on the menu than to question the serving staff as to the whereabouts and welfare credentials of the kitchen’s meat supplier. But I also consciously consume more vegetable-based dishes than meat dishes at home and for very good reason.

I keep pigs. I also shoot animals for food. When I kill something myself I clean and butcher it myself, for my family and friends to eat. When I have my pigs killed, I get up at 5am, feed them on a trailer that they have been fed on for 3 days so it’s not different, or stressful for them, gently close the door and drive the 5.6 miles to the small, local slaughterhouse just down the road. They are dead by 7am and it’s not unusual to be making the black-pudding in time for lunch. I occasionally buy beef from a local farmer, and the odd chicken form a local grower who has their own small-scale slaughter facility on site for their properly free-range birds.

The meat in my house is very highly valued. I have worked hard to produce or acquire it. I have spent money and, importantly, lots of time to get it. I have laboured over it and cared for it while it was alive, I may well have killed it myself and so I have a connection to it, I owe it something, it has a story and sometimes it even had a name. But I hesitate to describe even this meat as expensive.

The highest of welfare meat, grown locally, and slowly with minimal antibiotics and a good feed regimen, slaughtered locally and purchased as directly as possible by you will cost you more than the ‘cheap’ meat in the supermarket. But it is not expensive. It is the right price and if you can’t afford it simply eat less of it. It will be better for you, the environment and in the end for the whole world.

You may be vegetarian and feeling pretty good about it right now, and I salute you. But I like meat, and have no problem whatsoever with killing animals for meat from the wild provided there are no conservation concerns about the species, nor do I have an issue with good quality slow-grown, properly looked after high welfare animals being raised for meat. What I do have an issue with is the wilful ignorance of the masses who pretend to care all of a sudden and feel “betrayed” by the international retailer they have learned to depend on when they inadvertently poison them with Campylobacta, or sell them horse meat. How can you pay £4.50 or less for a chicken and genuinely believe that somewhere along the line it has not suffered more than necessary? What right do you have to be the supposedly unwitting architect of the abject misery that animal may have endured?

I am saddened that there are failings in our meat production systems, and there is never an excuse for unnecessary abuse of livestock but the issue is much, much bigger and in the end it lies within the power of every shopper out there, every diner in every restaurant and every parent in every home.

Eat less meat or even none at all if you prefer, spend more on your food even if it means economising elsewhere, try to care, make the effort and above all don’t blame it on anyone else or appear too shocked when you read about the terrible abuses in abattoirs or the vast failings of antibiotic as a medicine due to over use in agribusiness. It’s down to you and your choices, which can, in the end, make the changes to these systems that will improve them. Better for you, better for the environment and better most importantly for the animals involved.

From the point of view of commerce or economics it’s always the same old argument. We need to do it like this, it’s good for the economy. No, it’s not. It’s bad for farmers and with any more public health scares it’s going to start getting pretty bad for the economy too.

So, what if we all ate half as much meat as we do now, but paid twice as much for it? So, say a chicken costs you a tenner. Doesn’t seem much really for over a kilo of animal flesh. It could have a marginally better and slightly longer life spent at least partly outdoors. The farmer could make a little more perhaps leading them to invest in an on-site kill room or just better, less cramped transport. Maybe the killsman at the abattoir could get a few more quid a year in his wage packet? I’m sure that’s not too bleak a picture for the economy is it? It looks more sustainable to me, the kind of process that would work forever without peaks and troughs in productivity and supply. But, I’m just a cook, so what do I know? Well, I know one thing for sure it would certainly taste better!

I think the best way to make a difference on an everyday basis is to simply make meat a treat, make it a celebration, treat it with great care as you would any other very precious resource. Cook it well, use up any leftovers, make a stock from the bones, use meat as a sprinkle, or a seasoning where once it was the requisite main element of your cookery and you will still get the meaty hit you want, without the cost to welfare, the environment or your health.

Celebrate good meat, enjoy it, worship it if you like – just so long as you condemn the bad stuff to the past and encourage others to do the same.

Read our original news report about breaches of animal welfare en route to and at slaughterhouses here: http://bit.ly/2cbWaT6

This Author

Tim Maddams is a passionate and creative foodie, unafraid to face the difficult arguments that surround food. Having grown up in rural Wiltshire Tim spent time cooking for various notable chefs in London before a return to the West Country to take the helm at the River Cottage canteen in Axminster, Devon, later taking on a key role within the Fish Fight campaign. Tim now works as a private chef, food writer and presenter, based in beautiful East Devon

@TimMaddamsChef

Who would have thought that at Cornell University, arguably the most highly regarded agricultural university in the world, no scientist would speak for the benefits and safety of GMOs?

Perhaps I should have known, however. Last year I was invited to debate the merits of GMOs at Colby College in Maine. Also invited were food activist Jodi Koberinski, Stephen Moose (University of Illinois), and Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science and prominent advocate of GMOs worldwide.

Soon after Lynas heard I was coming, however, he pulled out of the debate. It’s not the first time. Most memorably, in 2001, I attended a court case in which the British government abandoned prosecution of two of its citizens who had pulled up GMOs planted for a scientific experiment.

The government preferred to lose the case rather than have the science of GMOs inspected by the judicial system. The defendants were duly and unanimously acquitted, with the judge describing them as the kind of people he would like to invite to dinner.

This avoidance of public debate is part of a pattern and the reasons are simple: in any fair fight, the arguments for the safety and benefits of GMOs fail.

Scientifically validated GMO hazards

As I have discussed elsewhere, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt the safety of GMO crops. The arguments against them are not limited to the dramatic increases in pesticide use they have engendered. GMOs also created the massive and dangerous consolidation being seen in the agriculture and seed sectors and have greatly reduced options available to farmers. Remarkably, they even yield less.

Most recently, the scientific literature has yielded new concerns over the predicted widespread use of a new generation of GMO crops resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D (Lurquin, 2016). These crops resist the herbicide by breaking it down into a known toxic metabolite called 2,4-DCP and other derivatives that probably remain in the crop until harvest. As the paper states:

“Unfortunately, much reduced phytotoxicity does not necessarily mean that … 2,4-D resistant crop plants are safe for consumption. Indeed, 2,4-DCP is cytotoxic to a variety of animals and animal cell lines.” (Lurquin, 2016).

In the final analysis, almost everyone loses from GMOs, except the makers themselves. These harms are often hidden or obfuscated, but in an unbiased debate they cannot be. Proponents of GMOs thus find themselves defending the indefensible – and sometimes they collapse into blustering idiocy.

What makes this event particularly noteworthy is that Cornell University is the home of the Cornell Alliance for Science, an organisation funded by the Gates Foundation and by agribusiness to the tune of $5.6million.

The mysterious reticence of the Cornell Alliance for Science

The purported mission of the Cornell Alliance is to explain the science underlying biotechnology and GMOs. Yet the Alliance has refused to offer a speaker despite numerous requests from Robert Schooler the student organiser of the discussion. Neither, despite numerous direct emails, was Robert able to find Cornell faculty prepared to defend them.

So he asked the Dean of its College of Agriculture, Kathryn Boor. She declined to find someone – though she “wished him luck”. Much the same applied to other notable public GMO proponents (Karl Haro von Mogel and Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project). This usually vociferous duo initially accepted subject to funding. When it was offered they backed out.

Anticipating some of this reluctance I reached out to Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer and publicist-in-chief, and to Mark Lynas, who has a position at Cornell, and to Kevin Folta via his blog.

Kevin Folta is the go-to travelling academic of the GMO industry. Folta didn’t respond but Lynas said he was abroad. Promoting GMOs perhaps? The only Cornell academic who did respond positively was Joe Regenstein of the Food Science department. However, his conditions (“no debate” and to “request the moderator”) were declined by Robert Schooler. Robert Schooler also did not want only one speaker on one side.

So will anyone debate Michael Hanson (of the Consumers Union) and myself at Cornell University on October 5th at 7pm in Anabel Taylor Hall? If you are reading this and have a PhD in a relevant field and wish to defend GMOs we hereby invite you.

And if the Alliance for Science, funded by the Gates foundation, can’t find you travel money I am sure we can. Otherwise, the debate may constitute GMO talking points read out by cardboard cutouts.

Bill and Melinda Gates may even consider they are entitled to demand their money back from the Cornell Alliance. Or they may just infer for themselves that GMOs are indeed indefensible.

Dr Jonathan R. Latham is editor of Independent Science News.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND). Its creation was supported by The Bioscience Resource Project.

References

Lurquin P. (2016) Production of a toxic metabolite in 2,4-D-resistant GM crop plants. 3 Biotech 6: 82. doi:10.1007/s13205-016-0387-9.

I have to write this piece, even as the battered soapbox of indignation is dragged out of the metaphorical dusty corner to centre stage I know I cant stop myself – I’m going to have to let this out.

Every now and again I loose my grip a little on my inner calm and there are a few common factors that stoke the embers of rage. I read with interest and great sadness the Ecologist article by Andrew Wasley and Josh Robbins a week or two ago and of course I am not in the least surprised or in fact shocked by the horrendous, seemingly systemic and callous breaches of animal welfare codes in our abattoirs.

The article states that some 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations have occurred over the past two years. And that number seems staggering when you assume that these don’t only happen during times of inspection – in fact they are possibly even more frequent when the watchful eye of authority is absent? I’ll refrain from making a leap of extrapolation here, it’s not necessary and rarely helpful.

But hold tight to the horses of indignation, rewind that tune selecta, let’s get this in context. Brace yourselves, I’m feeling a little brutal.

Now, 4000 breaches of welfare code over 2 years amounts to 2000 per year. Here’s some numbers for you courtesy of the Human Slaughter Association. Last year, the UK slaughtered for human consumption (remember these numbers exclude imported meat from as far away as South East Asia and New Zealand) approximately 2.6 million cattle, 10 million pigs, 14.5 million sheep and lambs and 950 million birds.

That’s around a billion animals. Excluding Fish. That’s a big number. A very big number.

Now this is not a defence, this is the beginning of the criticism. That we should be shocked by 4000 breaches of welfare by abattoirs is the problem. Really, we should be shocked by the vast number of overall kills. Now add to the mix the issue of an ever decreasing number of slaughter houses in the UK. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA), there were 13,000 slaughterhouses in Great Britain in 1938. This figure had fallen to 1,000 by 1986 and to 416 by 1999.

Today there are just 336  abattoirs registered in the UK. And with so many animals to be slaughtered, they often have to travel enormous distances to be killed. This in itself will be more stressful for the animals than if we had more, smaller slaughterhouses.

Slaughterhouses then are under immense pressure because of the volume of animals brought each day for slaughter. Many of them are giant, industrial buildings, specialising in a certain type of animal, notably pigs or chicken. We are treating animals like commodities rather than living creatures, so is it any wonder that breaches occur in the welfare codes?

I would venture it is inevitable, though still shameful, that these issues occur. The problem is far bigger than faceless men and women acting disgracefully in the slaughterhouse or whilst in the employ of a haulier firm. The real problem is a wilful ignorance and greed on behalf of the vast majority of consumers, the devaluing of meat within our culture and the endless, shameless and frankly irresponsible marketing of cheap meat by our larger retailers.

I am not a vegetarian, though I eat a lot of meat-free dishes, and certainly won’t eat meat that is of dubious origin. I don’t like to complain, or be the difficult one when out to dinner with friends and so, it’s simpler by far to order the vegetarian dishes on the menu than to question the serving staff as to the whereabouts and welfare credentials of the kitchen’s meat supplier. But I also consciously consume more vegetable-based dishes than meat dishes at home and for very good reason.

I keep pigs. I also shoot animals for food. When I kill something myself I clean and butcher it myself, for my family and friends to eat. When I have my pigs killed, I get up at 5am, feed them on a trailer that they have been fed on for 3 days so it’s not different, or stressful for them, gently close the door and drive the 5.6 miles to the small, local slaughterhouse just down the road. They are dead by 7am and it’s not unusual to be making the black-pudding in time for lunch. I occasionally buy beef from a local farmer, and the odd chicken form a local grower who has their own small-scale slaughter facility on site for their properly free-range birds.

The meat in my house is very highly valued. I have worked hard to produce or acquire it. I have spent money and, importantly, lots of time to get it. I have laboured over it and cared for it while it was alive, I may well have killed it myself and so I have a connection to it, I owe it something, it has a story and sometimes it even had a name. But I hesitate to describe even this meat as expensive.

The highest of welfare meat, grown locally, and slowly with minimal antibiotics and a good feed regimen, slaughtered locally and purchased as directly as possible by you will cost you more than the ‘cheap’ meat in the supermarket. But it is not expensive. It is the right price and if you can’t afford it simply eat less of it. It will be better for you, the environment and in the end for the whole world.

You may be vegetarian and feeling pretty good about it right now, and I salute you. But I like meat, and have no problem whatsoever with killing animals for meat from the wild provided there are no conservation concerns about the species, nor do I have an issue with good quality slow-grown, properly looked after high welfare animals being raised for meat. What I do have an issue with is the wilful ignorance of the masses who pretend to care all of a sudden and feel “betrayed” by the international retailer they have learned to depend on when they inadvertently poison them with Campylobacta, or sell them horse meat. How can you pay £4.50 or less for a chicken and genuinely believe that somewhere along the line it has not suffered more than necessary? What right do you have to be the supposedly unwitting architect of the abject misery that animal may have endured?

I am saddened that there are failings in our meat production systems, and there is never an excuse for unnecessary abuse of livestock but the issue is much, much bigger and in the end it lies within the power of every shopper out there, every diner in every restaurant and every parent in every home.

Eat less meat or even none at all if you prefer, spend more on your food even if it means economising elsewhere, try to care, make the effort and above all don’t blame it on anyone else or appear too shocked when you read about the terrible abuses in abattoirs or the vast failings of antibiotic as a medicine due to over use in agribusiness. It’s down to you and your choices, which can, in the end, make the changes to these systems that will improve them. Better for you, better for the environment and better most importantly for the animals involved.

From the point of view of commerce or economics it’s always the same old argument. We need to do it like this, it’s good for the economy. No, it’s not. It’s bad for farmers and with any more public health scares it’s going to start getting pretty bad for the economy too.

So, what if we all ate half as much meat as we do now, but paid twice as much for it? So, say a chicken costs you a tenner. Doesn’t seem much really for over a kilo of animal flesh. It could have a marginally better and slightly longer life spent at least partly outdoors. The farmer could make a little more perhaps leading them to invest in an on-site kill room or just better, less cramped transport. Maybe the killsman at the abattoir could get a few more quid a year in his wage packet? I’m sure that’s not too bleak a picture for the economy is it? It looks more sustainable to me, the kind of process that would work forever without peaks and troughs in productivity and supply. But, I’m just a cook, so what do I know? Well, I know one thing for sure it would certainly taste better!

I think the best way to make a difference on an everyday basis is to simply make meat a treat, make it a celebration, treat it with great care as you would any other very precious resource. Cook it well, use up any leftovers, make a stock from the bones, use meat as a sprinkle, or a seasoning where once it was the requisite main element of your cookery and you will still get the meaty hit you want, without the cost to welfare, the environment or your health.

Celebrate good meat, enjoy it, worship it if you like – just so long as you condemn the bad stuff to the past and encourage others to do the same.

Read our original news report about breaches of animal welfare en route to and at slaughterhouses here: http://bit.ly/2cbWaT6

This Author

Tim Maddams is a passionate and creative foodie, unafraid to face the difficult arguments that surround food. Having grown up in rural Wiltshire Tim spent time cooking for various notable chefs in London before a return to the West Country to take the helm at the River Cottage canteen in Axminster, Devon, later taking on a key role within the Fish Fight campaign. Tim now works as a private chef, food writer and presenter, based in beautiful East Devon

@TimMaddamsChef

Who would have thought that at Cornell University, arguably the most highly regarded agricultural university in the world, no scientist would speak for the benefits and safety of GMOs?

Perhaps I should have known, however. Last year I was invited to debate the merits of GMOs at Colby College in Maine. Also invited were food activist Jodi Koberinski, Stephen Moose (University of Illinois), and Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science and prominent advocate of GMOs worldwide.

Soon after Lynas heard I was coming, however, he pulled out of the debate. It’s not the first time. Most memorably, in 2001, I attended a court case in which the British government abandoned prosecution of two of its citizens who had pulled up GMOs planted for a scientific experiment.

The government preferred to lose the case rather than have the science of GMOs inspected by the judicial system. The defendants were duly and unanimously acquitted, with the judge describing them as the kind of people he would like to invite to dinner.

This avoidance of public debate is part of a pattern and the reasons are simple: in any fair fight, the arguments for the safety and benefits of GMOs fail.

Scientifically validated GMO hazards

As I have discussed elsewhere, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt the safety of GMO crops. The arguments against them are not limited to the dramatic increases in pesticide use they have engendered. GMOs also created the massive and dangerous consolidation being seen in the agriculture and seed sectors and have greatly reduced options available to farmers. Remarkably, they even yield less.

Most recently, the scientific literature has yielded new concerns over the predicted widespread use of a new generation of GMO crops resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D (Lurquin, 2016). These crops resist the herbicide by breaking it down into a known toxic metabolite called 2,4-DCP and other derivatives that probably remain in the crop until harvest. As the paper states:

“Unfortunately, much reduced phytotoxicity does not necessarily mean that … 2,4-D resistant crop plants are safe for consumption. Indeed, 2,4-DCP is cytotoxic to a variety of animals and animal cell lines.” (Lurquin, 2016).

In the final analysis, almost everyone loses from GMOs, except the makers themselves. These harms are often hidden or obfuscated, but in an unbiased debate they cannot be. Proponents of GMOs thus find themselves defending the indefensible – and sometimes they collapse into blustering idiocy.

What makes this event particularly noteworthy is that Cornell University is the home of the Cornell Alliance for Science, an organisation funded by the Gates Foundation and by agribusiness to the tune of $5.6million.

The mysterious reticence of the Cornell Alliance for Science

The purported mission of the Cornell Alliance is to explain the science underlying biotechnology and GMOs. Yet the Alliance has refused to offer a speaker despite numerous requests from Robert Schooler the student organiser of the discussion. Neither, despite numerous direct emails, was Robert able to find Cornell faculty prepared to defend them.

So he asked the Dean of its College of Agriculture, Kathryn Boor. She declined to find someone – though she “wished him luck”. Much the same applied to other notable public GMO proponents (Karl Haro von Mogel and Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project). This usually vociferous duo initially accepted subject to funding. When it was offered they backed out.

Anticipating some of this reluctance I reached out to Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer and publicist-in-chief, and to Mark Lynas, who has a position at Cornell, and to Kevin Folta via his blog.

Kevin Folta is the go-to travelling academic of the GMO industry. Folta didn’t respond but Lynas said he was abroad. Promoting GMOs perhaps? The only Cornell academic who did respond positively was Joe Regenstein of the Food Science department. However, his conditions (“no debate” and to “request the moderator”) were declined by Robert Schooler. Robert Schooler also did not want only one speaker on one side.

So will anyone debate Michael Hanson (of the Consumers Union) and myself at Cornell University on October 5th at 7pm in Anabel Taylor Hall? If you are reading this and have a PhD in a relevant field and wish to defend GMOs we hereby invite you.

And if the Alliance for Science, funded by the Gates foundation, can’t find you travel money I am sure we can. Otherwise, the debate may constitute GMO talking points read out by cardboard cutouts.

Bill and Melinda Gates may even consider they are entitled to demand their money back from the Cornell Alliance. Or they may just infer for themselves that GMOs are indeed indefensible.

Dr Jonathan R. Latham is editor of Independent Science News.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND). Its creation was supported by The Bioscience Resource Project.

References

Lurquin P. (2016) Production of a toxic metabolite in 2,4-D-resistant GM crop plants. 3 Biotech 6: 82. doi:10.1007/s13205-016-0387-9.

I have to write this piece, even as the battered soapbox of indignation is dragged out of the metaphorical dusty corner to centre stage I know I cant stop myself – I’m going to have to let this out.

Every now and again I loose my grip a little on my inner calm and there are a few common factors that stoke the embers of rage. I read with interest and great sadness the Ecologist article by Andrew Wasley and Josh Robbins a week or two ago and of course I am not in the least surprised or in fact shocked by the horrendous, seemingly systemic and callous breaches of animal welfare codes in our abattoirs.

The article states that some 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations have occurred over the past two years. And that number seems staggering when you assume that these don’t only happen during times of inspection – in fact they are possibly even more frequent when the watchful eye of authority is absent? I’ll refrain from making a leap of extrapolation here, it’s not necessary and rarely helpful.

But hold tight to the horses of indignation, rewind that tune selecta, let’s get this in context. Brace yourselves, I’m feeling a little brutal.

Now, 4000 breaches of welfare code over 2 years amounts to 2000 per year. Here’s some numbers for you courtesy of the Human Slaughter Association. Last year, the UK slaughtered for human consumption (remember these numbers exclude imported meat from as far away as South East Asia and New Zealand) approximately 2.6 million cattle, 10 million pigs, 14.5 million sheep and lambs and 950 million birds.

That’s around a billion animals. Excluding Fish. That’s a big number. A very big number.

Now this is not a defence, this is the beginning of the criticism. That we should be shocked by 4000 breaches of welfare by abattoirs is the problem. Really, we should be shocked by the vast number of overall kills. Now add to the mix the issue of an ever decreasing number of slaughter houses in the UK. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA), there were 13,000 slaughterhouses in Great Britain in 1938. This figure had fallen to 1,000 by 1986 and to 416 by 1999.

Today there are just 336  abattoirs registered in the UK. And with so many animals to be slaughtered, they often have to travel enormous distances to be killed. This in itself will be more stressful for the animals than if we had more, smaller slaughterhouses.

Slaughterhouses then are under immense pressure because of the volume of animals brought each day for slaughter. Many of them are giant, industrial buildings, specialising in a certain type of animal, notably pigs or chicken. We are treating animals like commodities rather than living creatures, so is it any wonder that breaches occur in the welfare codes?

I would venture it is inevitable, though still shameful, that these issues occur. The problem is far bigger than faceless men and women acting disgracefully in the slaughterhouse or whilst in the employ of a haulier firm. The real problem is a wilful ignorance and greed on behalf of the vast majority of consumers, the devaluing of meat within our culture and the endless, shameless and frankly irresponsible marketing of cheap meat by our larger retailers.

I am not a vegetarian, though I eat a lot of meat-free dishes, and certainly won’t eat meat that is of dubious origin. I don’t like to complain, or be the difficult one when out to dinner with friends and so, it’s simpler by far to order the vegetarian dishes on the menu than to question the serving staff as to the whereabouts and welfare credentials of the kitchen’s meat supplier. But I also consciously consume more vegetable-based dishes than meat dishes at home and for very good reason.

I keep pigs. I also shoot animals for food. When I kill something myself I clean and butcher it myself, for my family and friends to eat. When I have my pigs killed, I get up at 5am, feed them on a trailer that they have been fed on for 3 days so it’s not different, or stressful for them, gently close the door and drive the 5.6 miles to the small, local slaughterhouse just down the road. They are dead by 7am and it’s not unusual to be making the black-pudding in time for lunch. I occasionally buy beef from a local farmer, and the odd chicken form a local grower who has their own small-scale slaughter facility on site for their properly free-range birds.

The meat in my house is very highly valued. I have worked hard to produce or acquire it. I have spent money and, importantly, lots of time to get it. I have laboured over it and cared for it while it was alive, I may well have killed it myself and so I have a connection to it, I owe it something, it has a story and sometimes it even had a name. But I hesitate to describe even this meat as expensive.

The highest of welfare meat, grown locally, and slowly with minimal antibiotics and a good feed regimen, slaughtered locally and purchased as directly as possible by you will cost you more than the ‘cheap’ meat in the supermarket. But it is not expensive. It is the right price and if you can’t afford it simply eat less of it. It will be better for you, the environment and in the end for the whole world.

You may be vegetarian and feeling pretty good about it right now, and I salute you. But I like meat, and have no problem whatsoever with killing animals for meat from the wild provided there are no conservation concerns about the species, nor do I have an issue with good quality slow-grown, properly looked after high welfare animals being raised for meat. What I do have an issue with is the wilful ignorance of the masses who pretend to care all of a sudden and feel “betrayed” by the international retailer they have learned to depend on when they inadvertently poison them with Campylobacta, or sell them horse meat. How can you pay £4.50 or less for a chicken and genuinely believe that somewhere along the line it has not suffered more than necessary? What right do you have to be the supposedly unwitting architect of the abject misery that animal may have endured?

I am saddened that there are failings in our meat production systems, and there is never an excuse for unnecessary abuse of livestock but the issue is much, much bigger and in the end it lies within the power of every shopper out there, every diner in every restaurant and every parent in every home.

Eat less meat or even none at all if you prefer, spend more on your food even if it means economising elsewhere, try to care, make the effort and above all don’t blame it on anyone else or appear too shocked when you read about the terrible abuses in abattoirs or the vast failings of antibiotic as a medicine due to over use in agribusiness. It’s down to you and your choices, which can, in the end, make the changes to these systems that will improve them. Better for you, better for the environment and better most importantly for the animals involved.

From the point of view of commerce or economics it’s always the same old argument. We need to do it like this, it’s good for the economy. No, it’s not. It’s bad for farmers and with any more public health scares it’s going to start getting pretty bad for the economy too.

So, what if we all ate half as much meat as we do now, but paid twice as much for it? So, say a chicken costs you a tenner. Doesn’t seem much really for over a kilo of animal flesh. It could have a marginally better and slightly longer life spent at least partly outdoors. The farmer could make a little more perhaps leading them to invest in an on-site kill room or just better, less cramped transport. Maybe the killsman at the abattoir could get a few more quid a year in his wage packet? I’m sure that’s not too bleak a picture for the economy is it? It looks more sustainable to me, the kind of process that would work forever without peaks and troughs in productivity and supply. But, I’m just a cook, so what do I know? Well, I know one thing for sure it would certainly taste better!

I think the best way to make a difference on an everyday basis is to simply make meat a treat, make it a celebration, treat it with great care as you would any other very precious resource. Cook it well, use up any leftovers, make a stock from the bones, use meat as a sprinkle, or a seasoning where once it was the requisite main element of your cookery and you will still get the meaty hit you want, without the cost to welfare, the environment or your health.

Celebrate good meat, enjoy it, worship it if you like – just so long as you condemn the bad stuff to the past and encourage others to do the same.

Read our original news report about breaches of animal welfare en route to and at slaughterhouses here: http://bit.ly/2cbWaT6

This Author

Tim Maddams is a passionate and creative foodie, unafraid to face the difficult arguments that surround food. Having grown up in rural Wiltshire Tim spent time cooking for various notable chefs in London before a return to the West Country to take the helm at the River Cottage canteen in Axminster, Devon, later taking on a key role within the Fish Fight campaign. Tim now works as a private chef, food writer and presenter, based in beautiful East Devon

@TimMaddamsChef

Who would have thought that at Cornell University, arguably the most highly regarded agricultural university in the world, no scientist would speak for the benefits and safety of GMOs?

Perhaps I should have known, however. Last year I was invited to debate the merits of GMOs at Colby College in Maine. Also invited were food activist Jodi Koberinski, Stephen Moose (University of Illinois), and Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science and prominent advocate of GMOs worldwide.

Soon after Lynas heard I was coming, however, he pulled out of the debate. It’s not the first time. Most memorably, in 2001, I attended a court case in which the British government abandoned prosecution of two of its citizens who had pulled up GMOs planted for a scientific experiment.

The government preferred to lose the case rather than have the science of GMOs inspected by the judicial system. The defendants were duly and unanimously acquitted, with the judge describing them as the kind of people he would like to invite to dinner.

This avoidance of public debate is part of a pattern and the reasons are simple: in any fair fight, the arguments for the safety and benefits of GMOs fail.

Scientifically validated GMO hazards

As I have discussed elsewhere, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt the safety of GMO crops. The arguments against them are not limited to the dramatic increases in pesticide use they have engendered. GMOs also created the massive and dangerous consolidation being seen in the agriculture and seed sectors and have greatly reduced options available to farmers. Remarkably, they even yield less.

Most recently, the scientific literature has yielded new concerns over the predicted widespread use of a new generation of GMO crops resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D (Lurquin, 2016). These crops resist the herbicide by breaking it down into a known toxic metabolite called 2,4-DCP and other derivatives that probably remain in the crop until harvest. As the paper states:

“Unfortunately, much reduced phytotoxicity does not necessarily mean that … 2,4-D resistant crop plants are safe for consumption. Indeed, 2,4-DCP is cytotoxic to a variety of animals and animal cell lines.” (Lurquin, 2016).

In the final analysis, almost everyone loses from GMOs, except the makers themselves. These harms are often hidden or obfuscated, but in an unbiased debate they cannot be. Proponents of GMOs thus find themselves defending the indefensible – and sometimes they collapse into blustering idiocy.

What makes this event particularly noteworthy is that Cornell University is the home of the Cornell Alliance for Science, an organisation funded by the Gates Foundation and by agribusiness to the tune of $5.6million.

The mysterious reticence of the Cornell Alliance for Science

The purported mission of the Cornell Alliance is to explain the science underlying biotechnology and GMOs. Yet the Alliance has refused to offer a speaker despite numerous requests from Robert Schooler the student organiser of the discussion. Neither, despite numerous direct emails, was Robert able to find Cornell faculty prepared to defend them.

So he asked the Dean of its College of Agriculture, Kathryn Boor. She declined to find someone – though she “wished him luck”. Much the same applied to other notable public GMO proponents (Karl Haro von Mogel and Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project). This usually vociferous duo initially accepted subject to funding. When it was offered they backed out.

Anticipating some of this reluctance I reached out to Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer and publicist-in-chief, and to Mark Lynas, who has a position at Cornell, and to Kevin Folta via his blog.

Kevin Folta is the go-to travelling academic of the GMO industry. Folta didn’t respond but Lynas said he was abroad. Promoting GMOs perhaps? The only Cornell academic who did respond positively was Joe Regenstein of the Food Science department. However, his conditions (“no debate” and to “request the moderator”) were declined by Robert Schooler. Robert Schooler also did not want only one speaker on one side.

So will anyone debate Michael Hanson (of the Consumers Union) and myself at Cornell University on October 5th at 7pm in Anabel Taylor Hall? If you are reading this and have a PhD in a relevant field and wish to defend GMOs we hereby invite you.

And if the Alliance for Science, funded by the Gates foundation, can’t find you travel money I am sure we can. Otherwise, the debate may constitute GMO talking points read out by cardboard cutouts.

Bill and Melinda Gates may even consider they are entitled to demand their money back from the Cornell Alliance. Or they may just infer for themselves that GMOs are indeed indefensible.

Dr Jonathan R. Latham is editor of Independent Science News.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND). Its creation was supported by The Bioscience Resource Project.

References

Lurquin P. (2016) Production of a toxic metabolite in 2,4-D-resistant GM crop plants. 3 Biotech 6: 82. doi:10.1007/s13205-016-0387-9.

I have to write this piece, even as the battered soapbox of indignation is dragged out of the metaphorical dusty corner to centre stage I know I cant stop myself – I’m going to have to let this out.

Every now and again I loose my grip a little on my inner calm and there are a few common factors that stoke the embers of rage. I read with interest and great sadness the Ecologist article by Andrew Wasley and Josh Robbins a week or two ago and of course I am not in the least surprised or in fact shocked by the horrendous, seemingly systemic and callous breaches of animal welfare codes in our abattoirs.

The article states that some 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations have occurred over the past two years. And that number seems staggering when you assume that these don’t only happen during times of inspection – in fact they are possibly even more frequent when the watchful eye of authority is absent? I’ll refrain from making a leap of extrapolation here, it’s not necessary and rarely helpful.

But hold tight to the horses of indignation, rewind that tune selecta, let’s get this in context. Brace yourselves, I’m feeling a little brutal.

Now, 4000 breaches of welfare code over 2 years amounts to 2000 per year. Here’s some numbers for you courtesy of the Human Slaughter Association. Last year, the UK slaughtered for human consumption (remember these numbers exclude imported meat from as far away as South East Asia and New Zealand) approximately 2.6 million cattle, 10 million pigs, 14.5 million sheep and lambs and 950 million birds.

That’s around a billion animals. Excluding Fish. That’s a big number. A very big number.

Now this is not a defence, this is the beginning of the criticism. That we should be shocked by 4000 breaches of welfare by abattoirs is the problem. Really, we should be shocked by the vast number of overall kills. Now add to the mix the issue of an ever decreasing number of slaughter houses in the UK. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA), there were 13,000 slaughterhouses in Great Britain in 1938. This figure had fallen to 1,000 by 1986 and to 416 by 1999.

Today there are just 336  abattoirs registered in the UK. And with so many animals to be slaughtered, they often have to travel enormous distances to be killed. This in itself will be more stressful for the animals than if we had more, smaller slaughterhouses.

Slaughterhouses then are under immense pressure because of the volume of animals brought each day for slaughter. Many of them are giant, industrial buildings, specialising in a certain type of animal, notably pigs or chicken. We are treating animals like commodities rather than living creatures, so is it any wonder that breaches occur in the welfare codes?

I would venture it is inevitable, though still shameful, that these issues occur. The problem is far bigger than faceless men and women acting disgracefully in the slaughterhouse or whilst in the employ of a haulier firm. The real problem is a wilful ignorance and greed on behalf of the vast majority of consumers, the devaluing of meat within our culture and the endless, shameless and frankly irresponsible marketing of cheap meat by our larger retailers.

I am not a vegetarian, though I eat a lot of meat-free dishes, and certainly won’t eat meat that is of dubious origin. I don’t like to complain, or be the difficult one when out to dinner with friends and so, it’s simpler by far to order the vegetarian dishes on the menu than to question the serving staff as to the whereabouts and welfare credentials of the kitchen’s meat supplier. But I also consciously consume more vegetable-based dishes than meat dishes at home and for very good reason.

I keep pigs. I also shoot animals for food. When I kill something myself I clean and butcher it myself, for my family and friends to eat. When I have my pigs killed, I get up at 5am, feed them on a trailer that they have been fed on for 3 days so it’s not different, or stressful for them, gently close the door and drive the 5.6 miles to the small, local slaughterhouse just down the road. They are dead by 7am and it’s not unusual to be making the black-pudding in time for lunch. I occasionally buy beef from a local farmer, and the odd chicken form a local grower who has their own small-scale slaughter facility on site for their properly free-range birds.

The meat in my house is very highly valued. I have worked hard to produce or acquire it. I have spent money and, importantly, lots of time to get it. I have laboured over it and cared for it while it was alive, I may well have killed it myself and so I have a connection to it, I owe it something, it has a story and sometimes it even had a name. But I hesitate to describe even this meat as expensive.

The highest of welfare meat, grown locally, and slowly with minimal antibiotics and a good feed regimen, slaughtered locally and purchased as directly as possible by you will cost you more than the ‘cheap’ meat in the supermarket. But it is not expensive. It is the right price and if you can’t afford it simply eat less of it. It will be better for you, the environment and in the end for the whole world.

You may be vegetarian and feeling pretty good about it right now, and I salute you. But I like meat, and have no problem whatsoever with killing animals for meat from the wild provided there are no conservation concerns about the species, nor do I have an issue with good quality slow-grown, properly looked after high welfare animals being raised for meat. What I do have an issue with is the wilful ignorance of the masses who pretend to care all of a sudden and feel “betrayed” by the international retailer they have learned to depend on when they inadvertently poison them with Campylobacta, or sell them horse meat. How can you pay £4.50 or less for a chicken and genuinely believe that somewhere along the line it has not suffered more than necessary? What right do you have to be the supposedly unwitting architect of the abject misery that animal may have endured?

I am saddened that there are failings in our meat production systems, and there is never an excuse for unnecessary abuse of livestock but the issue is much, much bigger and in the end it lies within the power of every shopper out there, every diner in every restaurant and every parent in every home.

Eat less meat or even none at all if you prefer, spend more on your food even if it means economising elsewhere, try to care, make the effort and above all don’t blame it on anyone else or appear too shocked when you read about the terrible abuses in abattoirs or the vast failings of antibiotic as a medicine due to over use in agribusiness. It’s down to you and your choices, which can, in the end, make the changes to these systems that will improve them. Better for you, better for the environment and better most importantly for the animals involved.

From the point of view of commerce or economics it’s always the same old argument. We need to do it like this, it’s good for the economy. No, it’s not. It’s bad for farmers and with any more public health scares it’s going to start getting pretty bad for the economy too.

So, what if we all ate half as much meat as we do now, but paid twice as much for it? So, say a chicken costs you a tenner. Doesn’t seem much really for over a kilo of animal flesh. It could have a marginally better and slightly longer life spent at least partly outdoors. The farmer could make a little more perhaps leading them to invest in an on-site kill room or just better, less cramped transport. Maybe the killsman at the abattoir could get a few more quid a year in his wage packet? I’m sure that’s not too bleak a picture for the economy is it? It looks more sustainable to me, the kind of process that would work forever without peaks and troughs in productivity and supply. But, I’m just a cook, so what do I know? Well, I know one thing for sure it would certainly taste better!

I think the best way to make a difference on an everyday basis is to simply make meat a treat, make it a celebration, treat it with great care as you would any other very precious resource. Cook it well, use up any leftovers, make a stock from the bones, use meat as a sprinkle, or a seasoning where once it was the requisite main element of your cookery and you will still get the meaty hit you want, without the cost to welfare, the environment or your health.

Celebrate good meat, enjoy it, worship it if you like – just so long as you condemn the bad stuff to the past and encourage others to do the same.

Read our original news report about breaches of animal welfare en route to and at slaughterhouses here: http://bit.ly/2cbWaT6

This Author

Tim Maddams is a passionate and creative foodie, unafraid to face the difficult arguments that surround food. Having grown up in rural Wiltshire Tim spent time cooking for various notable chefs in London before a return to the West Country to take the helm at the River Cottage canteen in Axminster, Devon, later taking on a key role within the Fish Fight campaign. Tim now works as a private chef, food writer and presenter, based in beautiful East Devon

@TimMaddamsChef

Who would have thought that at Cornell University, arguably the most highly regarded agricultural university in the world, no scientist would speak for the benefits and safety of GMOs?

Perhaps I should have known, however. Last year I was invited to debate the merits of GMOs at Colby College in Maine. Also invited were food activist Jodi Koberinski, Stephen Moose (University of Illinois), and Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science and prominent advocate of GMOs worldwide.

Soon after Lynas heard I was coming, however, he pulled out of the debate. It’s not the first time. Most memorably, in 2001, I attended a court case in which the British government abandoned prosecution of two of its citizens who had pulled up GMOs planted for a scientific experiment.

The government preferred to lose the case rather than have the science of GMOs inspected by the judicial system. The defendants were duly and unanimously acquitted, with the judge describing them as the kind of people he would like to invite to dinner.

This avoidance of public debate is part of a pattern and the reasons are simple: in any fair fight, the arguments for the safety and benefits of GMOs fail.

Scientifically validated GMO hazards

As I have discussed elsewhere, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt the safety of GMO crops. The arguments against them are not limited to the dramatic increases in pesticide use they have engendered. GMOs also created the massive and dangerous consolidation being seen in the agriculture and seed sectors and have greatly reduced options available to farmers. Remarkably, they even yield less.

Most recently, the scientific literature has yielded new concerns over the predicted widespread use of a new generation of GMO crops resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D (Lurquin, 2016). These crops resist the herbicide by breaking it down into a known toxic metabolite called 2,4-DCP and other derivatives that probably remain in the crop until harvest. As the paper states:

“Unfortunately, much reduced phytotoxicity does not necessarily mean that … 2,4-D resistant crop plants are safe for consumption. Indeed, 2,4-DCP is cytotoxic to a variety of animals and animal cell lines.” (Lurquin, 2016).

In the final analysis, almost everyone loses from GMOs, except the makers themselves. These harms are often hidden or obfuscated, but in an unbiased debate they cannot be. Proponents of GMOs thus find themselves defending the indefensible – and sometimes they collapse into blustering idiocy.

What makes this event particularly noteworthy is that Cornell University is the home of the Cornell Alliance for Science, an organisation funded by the Gates Foundation and by agribusiness to the tune of $5.6million.

The mysterious reticence of the Cornell Alliance for Science

The purported mission of the Cornell Alliance is to explain the science underlying biotechnology and GMOs. Yet the Alliance has refused to offer a speaker despite numerous requests from Robert Schooler the student organiser of the discussion. Neither, despite numerous direct emails, was Robert able to find Cornell faculty prepared to defend them.

So he asked the Dean of its College of Agriculture, Kathryn Boor. She declined to find someone – though she “wished him luck”. Much the same applied to other notable public GMO proponents (Karl Haro von Mogel and Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project). This usually vociferous duo initially accepted subject to funding. When it was offered they backed out.

Anticipating some of this reluctance I reached out to Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer and publicist-in-chief, and to Mark Lynas, who has a position at Cornell, and to Kevin Folta via his blog.

Kevin Folta is the go-to travelling academic of the GMO industry. Folta didn’t respond but Lynas said he was abroad. Promoting GMOs perhaps? The only Cornell academic who did respond positively was Joe Regenstein of the Food Science department. However, his conditions (“no debate” and to “request the moderator”) were declined by Robert Schooler. Robert Schooler also did not want only one speaker on one side.

So will anyone debate Michael Hanson (of the Consumers Union) and myself at Cornell University on October 5th at 7pm in Anabel Taylor Hall? If you are reading this and have a PhD in a relevant field and wish to defend GMOs we hereby invite you.

And if the Alliance for Science, funded by the Gates foundation, can’t find you travel money I am sure we can. Otherwise, the debate may constitute GMO talking points read out by cardboard cutouts.

Bill and Melinda Gates may even consider they are entitled to demand their money back from the Cornell Alliance. Or they may just infer for themselves that GMOs are indeed indefensible.

Dr Jonathan R. Latham is editor of Independent Science News.

This article was originally published by Independent Science News (CC BY-NC-ND). Its creation was supported by The Bioscience Resource Project.

References

Lurquin P. (2016) Production of a toxic metabolite in 2,4-D-resistant GM crop plants. 3 Biotech 6: 82. doi:10.1007/s13205-016-0387-9.

A proposal for a permanent ban on international trade in elephant ivory was defeated, but two opposing proposals which would have allowed ivory to be traded legally on a global scale in the future were also roundly rejected today at the 17^th Conference of the Parties (CoP17) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Delegates from the 158 countries attending considered a proposal spearheaded by the African Elephant Coalition (AEC) to list all African elephants in Appendix I, the highest level of protection under international law, but it failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority with a vote of 62 to accept and 44 to reject. The AEC comprises 29 African countries representing over 70 percent of African elephant range States.

During the lengthy debate, Botswana, one of the four countries whose elephant populations are currently in Appendix II, surprised the room by coming out in favor of the AEC up-listing proposal.  “We unreservedly relinquish that status and support up-listing of all African elephants to Appendix I,” said Tshekedi Khama, Botswana Minister of the Environment, Wildlife and Tourism.  “Although Botswana has previously supported limited trade, we recognize we can no longer support the sale of ivory; we cannot deal with this issue in a vacuum.”

The European Union represented by the European Commission and participating as a full Party with 28 EU Member States in one voting bloc, voted against the AEC proposal. Only France amongst major EU states is understood to have argued for the EU to protect elephants.  Sources indicate the UK fully supported the EU position in contradiction with its public assurances on elephant protection and stopping the ivory trade.

Earlier in the morning, Proposals 14 from Namibia and 15 from Namibia and Zimbabwe which would have relaxed rules for a legal global ivory trade were soundly defeated, in a secret vote, 73 to 27 and 80 to 21, respectively.

It is now being rumored that the electronic voting system, which has already failed several times today, miscalculated the elephant vote.

“The European Union’s position is shocking, said Vera Weber, President of Fondation Franz Weber. “Their patronizing and colonialist attitude to the vast majority of African elephant range states calling for an Appendix I listing is shameful.  Even Botswana has come out in favor of an up-listing to Appendix I and still, they do not listen.”

“Today the EU blocked an Appendix I listing for all African elephants,” said Dr Rosalind Reeve, senior advisor to Fondation Franz Weber and the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.  “The numbers are clear. If the EU had supported the proposal by the African Elephant Coalition, now also supported by Botswana, the Appendix I listing would have gone through.  The blood of Africa’s elephants is on the EU’s hands.”

“All the countries in the European Union voted down the most important proposal at this Conference to protect elephants, and they will bear a heavy share of responsibility for the consequences,” said Robert Hepworth, former Chair of the CITES Standing Committee and Senior Advisor to David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.  

“The EU was desperate not to offend the host country. They ignored a million-strong petition, a resolution from the European Parliament, the views of a large majority of African Range states, and even the brave intervention of South Africa’s neighbor, Botswana.  Surely Botswana has a lot more to risk than the EU in its relations with large neighbors. The EU’s behavior today made me ashamed to have voted to stay in the EU.”

Although supporters of the AEC proposal were necessarily disappointed by the outcome, earlier in the conference they praised other decisions which should help to reverse the poaching crisis and ensure additional protection for African elephants.

Last week, the mandate to continue an eight-year debate on creating a mechanism to legalize ivory trade in the future was finally terminated by an overwhelming majority.  And just yesterday, delegates agreed by consensus that countries should urgently close their domestic markets for commercial trade in raw and worked ivory, the first ever recommendation from CITES to close rather than simply regulate national  markets.

All populations of African elephants were originally listed on CITES Appendix I in 1989, banning international ivory trade. But the protection was weakened in 1997 and 2000 when populations in four countries (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe) were down-listed to Appendix II (a less endangered status) to allow two sales of ivory stockpiles to Japan and China in 1999 and 2008.

A moratorium on proposals for ivory trade by Appendix II countries has been in effect since 2008, but is set to expire next year which may open the way for the submission of proposals to trade.

All decisions taken by the CITES Committees throughout the conference can be revived in the plenary this Tuesday and Wednesday.

Coul Links in the Scottish Highlands is a part of the Loch Fleet Site of Special Scientific Interest and boasts pristine sand dunes, is home to a variety of birds including Icelandic greylag geese, bar-tailed godwit and curlew, and plants such as variegated horsetail, purple milk-vetch, rue-leaved saxifrage, moonwort and frog orchid.

Protected as part of the Dornoch Firth and Loch Fleet Ramsar site, not only does the golf course threaten the SSSI area and its ecology, but those living in the town of Dornoch say the proposal is dividing the town and so far five environmental groups have voiced their opposition to the plans.

The developers, American golf course giant Mike Kaiser, and Todd Warnock, entrepreneur and owner of 5-star Links House at Royal Dornoch, have teamed up with Texas-based golf course architects CooreCrenshaw, and believe that the new course will attract 15,000 golf tourists to the Highland region of Sutherland in year one, and 20,000 by year 10.

Nearby the Royal Dornoch Golf Course, ranked fifth in the world by golfers, already attracts a huge number of golfing tourists to the area each year. And protesters argue that the 333-hectare Coul Links proposal would only create an extra 20 or so jobs to the Dornoch area and would devastate its environmental status.

Chris Surmonte moved to Dornoch in 1998, thanks to the draw of golfing tourism. He worked as a caddy at Royal Dornoch for two months, but he is against the proposals at Coul Links warning that developing this piece of land would be a disaster: “It’s a case of economic benefit against ecological destruction. The town is a super-bucolic, remote countryside coastal wilderness. From that aspect I’m surprised the application has even got this far.

“There would be economic benefits but not in line with the way this town has grown organically from all these years and there is a really fine balance of tourism vs ecology. At the moment it’s balanced really nicely, we get the tourism from Royal Dornoch Golf Club and also the people who go hill walking, go to Orkney, and stay in a charming town with no overt marketing.  

“The kind of golf tourist coming to Coul Links would not be the same as those visiting Royal Dornoch. It would be far more mainstream, for super-rich people who are coming simply because it’s a Mike Keiser project. I believe the balance of the town will be put out of kilter. It will turn into a golf theme park.

“The town is already full to the brim in summer and this is just a vanity project for two wealthy Americans. This is a local town and this is too much of a globalization of this tiny place. It’s a total paradox of what these hyper-rich Americans love about Dornoch. It’s like two British people going to America, buying a little corner of Yosemite National park and saying ‘we going to develop it and invite all our rich Scottish friends to play.'”

Hugh Fullerton-Smith, former director of the European Nature Trust and now Executive Director for Change for Climate Change, worries that something as important as SSSI status can be taken away. “It’s really simple for me – Scotland has lost 99 per cent of its natural habitat thanks to our collective greed and climate change means we have lost a lot of areas of wilderness.

“It’s a real natural jewel here and SSSI status takes a lot to get. We are not fighting the development, but we are fighting the issue. Todd Warnock has done a lot of good in the town, and Mike Keiser has said he won’t go ahead if 40 per cent of the community is against it. Sadly, a lot of people don’t really understand the impact of this development.”

The Scottish Wildlife Trust used to manage the area under an agreement with the landowners Cambusmore Estates. The Trust is extremely concerned about the golf course plans, as are PlantLife Scotland, RSPB Scotland, Buglife, and most recently The Marine Conservation Society.

Calum Duncan, Head of Conservation Scotland for the Marine Conservation Society said: “Scotland is of European importance for sand dune systems and Coul Links is one of few in Scotland and across the UK that remains almost entirely undisturbed. We think they should stay that way as befitting a nationally and internationally important site, so that the local community, visitors and rare wildlife can share and enjoy them for generations to come.”

The five protest groups say they have all written to the developers urging them to reconsider their plans however Todd Warnock claims no such letter has been received.

Bruce Wilson, Senior Policy Officer, Scottish Wildlife Trust said: “The recently published State of Nature Report gives a clear warning about the loss and fragmentation of coastal habitats, and demonstrates how unsustainable development is harming Scotland’s wildlife and habitats.

“A very significant proportion of the undisturbed dune system at Coul Links will be irreversibly damaged if this proposal goes ahead. It is almost inconceivable that we are faced with the loss of such a precious place. Hopefully lessons have been learned from the Scottish Government’s approval of Trump International Links in Aberdeenshire, which has been a disaster for another nationally important sand dune system.”

On the contrary, Todd Warnock believes that the threat to wildlife and the ecology of the area can be safeguarded and says: “We are confident, working with all the statutory bodies and the local communities, that any threat to wildlife can be mitigated. That is precisely the reason for the environmental impact statement process via Highland Council. (The EIS ensure environmental management is considered as part of the approvals process for all development proposals). Plus the vast majority of residents support the project.”

He added that ways of conserving the wildlife will be detailed in the Environment Impact Assessment, with specific efforts put in place to strengthen the ecosystem.

“Our objective is to enhance the wildlife and dunes. We have been very intentional with the design of the course to stay far away from the most sensitive areas. But the developer (Mike Keiser) and designer (CooreCrenshaw) are both world renowned for environmental sensitivity and spectacular golf courses that have, in Mr Keiser’s, case have been uniformly praised for both environmental sensitivity and positive economic impact. All this was detailed preliminarily at the public consultation events.

“We are confident the golf course will serve as a positive economic catalyst to the entire East Sutherland region. Leaders of every golf course in the area (six in total), who were initially concerned, have now pledged their firm support. Over 80% of local Embo residents and 73% of all attendees who wrote responses after our public events were supportive.

“The Embo Community Trust, who members live adjacent to Coul Links, has been firmly supportive of our efforts. Finally, our economics consultant has provided detailed analysis on the economic impact which is materially positive.” 

You can follow this campaign at www.notcoul.com

See the new State of Nature report here State of Nature

Laura Briggs is the Ecologist’s UK-based news reporter. Follow her here @WordsbyBriggs