What do koalas have to do with the Big Mac

Koalas and other Australian animals are threatened by deforestation that makes way for cattle grazing.Greenpeace calls on McDonald's to make the meat supply chain transparent and influence industry practices.

• In Australia, an area of ​​forest the size of a football pitch is destroyed every two minutes.This is threatening the survival of koalas.
• The trees are cut down to make room for the breeding of cattle that will be used to produce meat.McDonald's is among the main buyers.
• Greenpeace has launched a campaign to ask the fast food giant to make its supply chain transparent and sustainable.

After the Amazon and Congo basins, theAustralia has one of the rates of deforestation worst in the world with serious repercussions on climate and on the biodiversity since these are habitat territories of Koala, wallabies and numerous other animal and plant species.The felling of thousands of hectares of forests is mainly due to the need to make room for cattle pastures to meet the great demand of meat. 

Deforestation linked to meat production threatens koalas

As reported Greenpeace Australia Pacific, orevery two minutes an area equivalent to a football field is destroyed and every second a native animal is killed.I am 50 million wild animals who die every year as a result of deforestation, while, as reported independent research commissioned by the environmental organisation, in five years, in Queensland, 668,665 hectares of forest – a figure equivalent to 2,400 times the size of the city of Sydney – were destroyed in the production of alone Australian beef.One of the largest buyers of this meat is the fast food giant McDonald's: supplies us with the 65 percent of the chain's stores globally.

Greenpeace calls on McDonald's to "take deforestation off the menu"

“For too long the beef industry has hidden behind watered-down definitions and weak laws.If big companies like McDonald's took concrete action to change their practices, we could stop the destruction of native wildlife and the places they call home,” says Greenpeace Australia Pacific.Through the launch of the campaign “Take Deforestation off the Menu” with a petition to collect signatures, the association asks McDonald's to publicly commit to creating deforestation-free supply chains by 2025 in order to help avoid the destruction of nature and the extinction of animals such as Koala.

According to the organization, currently McDonald's does not have clear and transparent policies on deforestation but, given his significant purchasing power, with his commitment he could influence and shape industry practices.