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WWF to Tell Australian Cattlemen How to be “Sustainable”

The Queensland Country Life today carried a story entitled “WWF sinks hooks deeper into beef industry” by Brad Cooper which makes it beyond doubt that WWF is to project manage beef sustainability courses at the behest of Mc Donalds and with the full co-operation of CCA and MLA.

WWF, through their influence with the Greens in Queensland have been responsible for Vegetation Management laws implemented without ‘just terms’ and with no carbon credit for avoided deforestation. Those were stolen by the government to meet its Kyoto commitments.

An early task force reviewing damage to the Great Barrier Reef wanted to say that the reef was in good shape. However they bowed to the protests of the WWF representative and highlighted the small areas that appeared slightly damaged. WWF have claimed ever since that farming and grazing are damaging the reef in spite of lack of research and knowledge that urban centres are actually causing more alleged pollution.

All green groups have been involved in Wild Rivers legislations and declarations and possible World Heritage listing claiming on the one hand that the areas are either pristine or retaining most of their natural values and on the other denigrating the cattlemen who have lived there for more than 100 years for degrading the landscape and it therefore needs protection.

This legislation has put those graziers in a time warp whose effects will not be felt immediately but over time as it becomes impossible to adopt the results of modern research they will start to bite. One of the great lies told is that declaration will protect the areas from mining and CSG exploitation.

The greatest harm of all has been to our reputation, our self esteem and sense of worth that comes from knowing that you are doing a worthwhile job-feeding the people of the world.

WWF and others have taken the flawed findings of ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow” and publicised them to the point where vegetarian celebrities, authors, journalists, governments and research organisations including our own National Health and Medical Research Council have urged limited or zero meat intake on environmental grounds.

The upshot is that our credentials have been damaged as part of a campaign by environmentalists to discredit those of us who live by the land in order to set themselves up as the environmental gods and the only people deserving of dictating policy and receiving funding and even big business has fallen for the scam.

Be aware that when you respond to that beautifully worded invitation to an Ausgraze workshop your presenter will be in the employ of WWF and the “voluntary” course will soon become mandatory.

Have CCA and MLA let us down once again by not highlighting the science that is on our side instead of responding to the dark green Mob.

The table below is found at page two of the document, Naked extortion? Environmental NGOs imposing [in]voluntary regulations on consumers and business found at the IPA web site. To read the entire document click on this link.

PRECEDING DISCUSSION - http://justgroundsonline.com/forum/topics/international-green-group...

UPDATE #1

Beef Central article, WWF: To engage or not to engage?

UPDATE #2

Follow up article by Brad Cooper published at farmonline, Sustainable beef plan under wraps

Tags: CCA, MLA, McDonalds, WWF, barrier, cattlemen, graziers, great, reef

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on June 2, 2012 at 10:17am

In light of UNESCO's latest report on the reef...

http://m.smh.com.au/environment/unesco-report-scathing-of-great-bar...

you can bet that the WWF will be encouraging their friends at the DERM to check up on the chemicals cattle-farmers are using in Alpha, Cunnamulla etc to prevent "dangerous run-off that could potentially affect the reef".

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Permalink Reply by Dixie Nott on June 4, 2012 at 12:46pm

The CCA online forum including the WWF discussion, draws to a close on June 5th. This morning I added a few comments and summarised the responses which are in the pdf I will attach. The upshot was, I think:

Week 2: What are your views on the value of cattle production representatives engaging with interest groups such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the RSPCA?

51 responses 1169 views
18 different respondents "against" in 42 posts
3 different respondents "for" engagement in 9 posts
Taken on that small sample 5/6 against =83% against = all of a football field except the goal posts. (That’s a worrying comparison cause we don’t control the goal posts)

Responses all topics = 46 (other than WWF topic) + 51 (WWF topic) = 97
WWF / Non WWF = 51/97 = 53 % of all responses were on that 1 topic out of 16 topics.

I forgot to upload the pdf in this post and don't seem to have that option under the edit, so will try in the next post.

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Permalink Reply by Dixie Nott on June 4, 2012 at 12:51pm

The summary of the CCA online discussion is this pdf:

Attachments:

CCA survey summary.pdf, 50 KB

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Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on June 4, 2012 at 1:23pm

Dixie

It would appear on the surface that the CCA consultation was a resounding failure with most responses being, as you pointed out on the one topic.

People have obviously given up hope that they will be listened to in any meaningful way.

Perhaps if it is still running a few comments could go up this afternoon.

Thank you for reminding us.

Joanne

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on June 4, 2012 at 5:47pm

Last night -I posted my last and went through the lot and wrote down all the contributors names.

-10 of us used our real names

-21 others used a blog name or just a John or Peter etc.

It disheartens me to see the small interest taken on the cattle blogs here but compared to this - we do quite well. 31 people could be bothered out of 200000plus that fork out levies. There is no doubt that Aussies are a dopey lot.!

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Permalink Reply by Ian Davies on June 4, 2012 at 6:23pm

Rob, worse than dopey when you learn that O.S (Nation) land buyers do not pay any taxes on their production if shipped back home. Is that the same for all the cattle grazed & shipped or slaughtered & shipped? How many Nations follow these rules? That expression paddock to plate needs a few words added #!!##**#!!!.

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Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on June 5, 2012 at 8:33am

The Country Life needs to be congratulated for fully informing cattle producers about the plan to partner with WWF.

To the best of my knowledge there has been little to no coverage of the issue in any other state, not even in the rural newspapers.

That leaves most producers unaware that their Cattle Council wishes them to do business with an organisation which is now openly preaching anti-growth to save the planet.

It's obsession with the acreage used to raise livestock, no matter how delicate the imprint and belief in more intensive livestock systems and more intensive agriculture and associated problems is contrary to our culture and heritage.

When their so-called science based report shows Mongolia!!! as having the largest livestock footprint they need to redo their calculations.

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Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on June 9, 2012 at 5:15pm

Canadian Donna La Framboise has again exposed the hypocracy of green organisations claiming that their opponents have accepted funding from unacceptable sources.

http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/06/08/masters-of-hypocrisy-the-union-of-concerned-scientists/

When asked about this in a survey she had this to say,

The short version is that green groups take lots of fossil fuel money directly – and lots more from fossil-fuel funded foundations. The source of the Rockefeller Foundation fortune is Standard Oil. John D. Rockefeller was its founder.

If fossil fuel money is dirty when skeptics take it, why isn’t it dirty when Greenpeace helps itself to the Rockefeller fortune? Why isn’t it dirty when Rajendra Pachauri (the chairman of the IPCC) uses it to fund his annual sustainability conference – both via direct sponsorships from oil companies, and via grants from the Rockefeller Foundation (see the bottom of my blog post here)?

If people really believe that oil money taints things, why doesn’t anyone care about the 40 years of oil funding that has gone to the World Wildlife Fund? The WWF’s first corporate sponsor was Shell – see my blog post: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/04/11/the-wwfs-vast-pool-of-oil-money/

Why isn’t there more concern about the $25 million in fossil fuel funding the Sierra Club took recently – see my blog post: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/17/big-oil-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee/

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Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on June 14, 2012 at 1:24pm

Has everyone seen the IPA report documenting Australian government funding of environmental terrorist groups like the WWF??

http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1339371699_document_accou...

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Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on June 14, 2012 at 4:27pm

Yes Rory it is by Property Rights Australia Conference speaker Tim Wilson.

The Australian Taxpayer’s Alliance, formerly Menzie’s House has a brief outline of the paper and a link to a petition to sign to stop government funding of extremist groups. There are at present just over 500 signatures.

I believe my attempt timed out.

The paper asks whether the “aid” dispersed through these NGO’s is being used to advance aims that are contrary to the aim of the Australian Government which seeks to encourage industry at a local level to help developing communities out of poverty.

Increasingly NGOs are agents of political action domestically and internationally, and often that runs

contrary to the objectives of the Australian aid program. Considering the inappropriateness of

government funding used for political activities, such conduct is of great concern.

Domestically, aid program-funded NGOs have become key actors to advance increased funding for

aid, which they will likely take a slice of. They are now securing millions of taxpayers’ dollars.

They have also become key players in domestic political debates supporting the introduction of

legislation that would harm imports of primary commodities such as wood products and palm oil.

Collaborating with other NGOs and politicians, these NGOs are seeking to put in place laws and

regulations that would harm the development of these industries within countries that are receiving

Australian government aid funding.

One of the clear objectives of the Australian aid program is to promote sustainable economic

development. Aid-funded NGOs are effectively undermining that objective with actions within

Australia and also in the individual countries concerned.

Some of the same agencies mentioned in this paper are also the proponents of a Greenpeace plan to stop the Australian coal boom.

The Greenpeace plan being actioned was enough to make Federal Minister Tony Burke and Queensland Premier Campbell Newman forget their spat over the mining approval process and unite in condemning the Greenpeace plan.

Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan also condemned the plan which aims to stop any coal mining but particularly the Galilee coal project and related infrastructure.

GetUp has already placed advertisements in India's Financial Times at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars as part of the plan to puncture investor confidence in the project.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/warring-governments-uni...

The full Greenpeace document can be found here.

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1206_greenpeace.pdf

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Permalink Reply by Janet H. Thompson on June 15, 2012 at 4:09am

Great post, important comments, excellent discussion. Thanks, Joanne, and all the commenters. This sums it up beautifully.

Cheers,

janet

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Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on June 15, 2012 at 11:15am

Thank you Beverley and Janet.

I agree it could be a new discussion but I am busy organising the Property Rights Australia Conference and don't think I can do it just now. Here is another article on the subject.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/warring-governments-uni...