'Food for all our futures'
Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
July 8-14, 2002
The Vegetarian Society
of the United Kingdom
| International Vegetarian Union (IVU) | ||
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35th World Vegetarian Congress 'Food for all our futures' Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland July 8-14, 2002 |
Hosted by The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom |
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The International
Vegetarian Congress: By Jane Bowler (editor of The Vegetarian - VSUK magazine) Thursday: environmental issues ITALY: Courgette croquettes Linda's vegan version of the traditional Scottish pudding, atholl brose, contained more than a splash of scotch whisky, and was particularly enjoyed by her hungry audience at the close of the session. The key theme for the day was 'environmental issues', so after lunch I headed for a talk by Dr Hans Diehl called 'Ecology the vegetarian advantage'. Dr Diehl proved to be a very engaging speaker who explained that whilst many people all over the globe aspire to an American-style diet, this is unsustainable. His presentation was a real goldmine of facts to support a vegetarian choice. According to Dr Diehl, 56% of US agricultural land is used to produce beef. This is even more shocking when you look at the statistics relating to possible yields of food per acre of farmland: On one good acre of farmland you can grow: Facts like these make it quite clear that the world's population can never be fed on hamburgers. Incredibly, Dr Diehl also told us that 70% of US grain is fed to livestock! The day's closing session featured three speakers on environmental issues. Dawn Carr, a campaigner on fishing for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) gave an impassioned talk on the damage that fishing, and fish farming, does to our world. She told us about the damage to the delicate ecosystem on the sea bed that is done by huge weighted fishing nets. Dawn said that 25% of all the sea animals that are caught by fishing trawlers are thrown back - because they are too small, or not a marketable type of fish. Most are dead or dying, as a result of being caught and sorted. Fish farming is the fastest-growing sector of food production. Dawn explained that intensive farming of fish in sea 'pens' leads to an unnatural concentration of waste products, and disease which can spread to the rest of the fish population, and which in turn is controlled by chemicals. IVU council member David Pye asked the question - why are some dedicated environmentalists not vegetarians? He suggested that answers to this question might include: 'I haven't got time to be a vegetarian, I'm too busy saving the planet' David went on to provide an arsenal of weapons for vegetarians to use to cut through these arguments. Vegetarianism helps protect the natural environment, reducing environmental pollution. It can help prevent world food shortages, and in turn protect fragile third world economies. Farming of animals has a major impact on the level of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and also produces many other serious pollutants. Vegetarianism can also prevent a world water shortage David had some statistics on how much water it takes to produce a variety of foods: To produce a kilogramme of potatoes requires 500 litres of water On Thursday evening I met Christopher Silva, a Brazilian whose slightly delayed arrival caused quite a stir turn to our back page for my interview with him - quite a character! |