No milk for me thanks
Home » Blog » Sophie Bond » No milk for me thanksDirty dairy farming is a threat to New Zealand's clean green image. Greenpeace is exposing the environmental crimes of industry giant Fonterra.
At dawn the activists unfurl their 40m long banner on the black, gritty floor of the open cast mine. Some strap themselves into harnesses hanging from huge metal tripods blocking the entrance to the Southland mine. Others lock themselves onto excavating machinery.
That was the scene as activists shut down the New Vale lignite coal mine near Gore on the morning of November 17.
New Vale is the mine that supplies the coal to power Fonterra's milk dehydrators.
Fonterra is one of this country's biggest coal users, burning over 400,000 tonnes a year at its dairy processing factories. Fonterra's use of fossil fuels creates 1.87 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission per year. That's double the emissions from New Zealand's domestic air travel each year.
Agriculture is responsible for 49 percent of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions. We're just two weeks out from the international climte talks in Copenhagen, and Greenpeace says Fonterra is the biggest block to this country doing the right thing on climate change.
Greenpeace has been after Fonterra for a couple of months now. They exposed its contribution to the destruction of Indonesian rainforest through the importation of palm kernels to feed its cows.
It doesn't end there. The big business of cow-juice is the economic driving force behind dairy intensification in New Zealand. Soil damage. Polluted waterways. Deforestation.
You can find out more about Fonterra's climate crimes here. It's enough to make me lactose intolerant.
