Currently, the national environmental campaigning group Friends of the Earth pay very little attention to the fact that the production of meat & dairy products is one of the biggest causes of global warming. Livestock production is also at the heart of almost every other environmental catastrophe confronting the planet - rainforest destruction, spreading deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain and soil erosion (all detailed in a report titled `Livestock`s Long Shadow`, by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, see  http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html ).

Despite the mounting and indisputable evidence, the FoE website totally ignores the issue and neither do they produce relevant literature, which would both help FoE members and the general public alike to make an informed choice regarding their diet. With a little help from RVV, Redditch FoE are seeking to address this disgraceful situation, by drafting and submitting the following Motion for the FoE Local Groups Conference, September 2007:

"This conference calls upon the Board of Friends of the Earth Ltd. to consider publishing detailed information via FoE literature and the FoE website, that will explain how the production of various foods have vastly differing environmental impacts, in order to clearly illustrate the many environmental benefits of adopting a plant based diet.

This conference notes that there is an ever increasing amount of research & evidence from a wide variety of organisations, that suggests that meat and dairy production are amongst the most environmentally damaging practices carried out by mankind."

(Please click here  http://www.redditchveggies.makessense.co.uk/articles/568.html to see the background info that has also been submitted with this motion)

In total, 18 Motions have been submitted, but only 6 can be debated at the conference. Therefore, full details of the Motions will be sent to all local groups on 13 July 2007 and groups will be given the opportunity to vote on their preferred top 6 Motions via a prioritisation ballot. If you`re a member of your local FoE group, please urge them to vote for the `Food Production` Motion!

If the Motion gets through this stage, it will be debated and voted on at the FoE Local Groups Conference from 7-9th September in Reading. If passed, it will become a Resolution for the Board of Friends of the Earth Ltd. to integrate within Friends of the Earth`s policy and strategy. So if the motion gets that far, it`s crucial that as many `eco-veggie` members of FoE as possible, attend the conference and cast their vote!

It is vitally important that FoE start to address this issue NOW - for far too long they`ve remained silent. It`s time that the `UK 's most influential environmental campaigning organisation` dealt with mankinds most environmentally destructive habit.

For more details of the FoE Local Groups Conference, click here  http://community.foe.co.uk/conference

For more detailed info about how meat/dairy production devastates the planet, see  http://www.vegansociety.com/phpws/files/phatfile/environbooklet.pdf and  http://www.viva.org.uk/guides/planetonaplate.htm