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This year, The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, made a speech about the theme it honoured, “Big cats: predators under threat”. The theme included the other species of wild felines in addition to the 4 “big cats” (those that can roar), and was an opportunity for him to express some of the most pressing problems these cats face today, and how the future will be if we do not change how we are consuming meat across the world today.
Agriculture & Demand Has Its Responsability
He mentioned how The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include “specific targets to end the poaching and illegal trafficking of protected species of wild fauna and flora”, but this is only one threat the cats face. An more insidious and un-talked of cause is the loss of habitat, not due to increasing infrastructures as cities develop, but to rainforests being razed down for the implementing of soy plantations. The CEO of welfare charity Compassion in World Farming, Philip Lymbery, raised this problematic, and broke through the stigma that soy is largely in demand due to an increase in pro-vegan lifestyles. Though it may hold true that vegans are on the rise (according to this report Top Trends in Prepared Foods in 2017 by GlobalData, veganism has exploded over the last 3 years, with a growth of 500% in the US alone since 2014), soy is…
