By Clare Westwood, Regional Director
KUALA LUMPUR — Last year, the Catholic Bishops of Malaysia signed off on the PROTECT OUR EARTH, PROTECT OUR CHILDREN (PROTEC) CAMPAIGN for all Malaysian dioceses. PROTEC is organised by the Episcopal Commission for Creation Justice of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei (ECCJ-MSB) and runs for five years from 1 September 2020 to 31 August 2025 with different themes each year. The theme for Year 1 was “Use less electricity”.
The theme for PROTEC Year 2 is “Cut down meat, dairy and food waste”.
Industrialised livestock, dairy and seafood operations are very ecologically destructive. Industrial livestock agriculture is one of the highest contributors to deforestation and accounts for 14.5 percent of global GHG emissions,1,2 more than all the world’s transport combined.3 Factory farms are the problem, not small farmers and herders.
A meta-analysis of 38,700 farms in 119 countries found that the meat and dairy industry uses 83 percent of farmland and produces 60 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it provides just 18 percent of calories and 37 percent of protein.4 Even crustacean and fish farming was found to have a high carbon footprint because of all the excreta and unconsumed feed settling down at the bottom of the ponds, making them the perfect environment for methane production.5 Meanwhile, overfishing, plastic pollution and ocean acidification are harming and killing marine life. So, meat, dairy and seafood all come at high ecological costs.
PROTEC also calls attention to the grave issue of food waste. One-third of the food produced globally for human consumption is wasted every year (approximately 1.3 billion tonnes)—this is enough to feed two billion people.6 Food waste produces 8–10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.7 Food loss and waste amount to a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labour and capital and needlessly produce GHGs. Also, when food is thrown away and rots in landfills, methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is released.
Greenhouse gases are driving spiralling global warming. 2020 was one of the three hottest years ever recorded at about 1.2 degrees celcius above preindustrial levels. Dangerous climate change is already happening now. If humankind does not act fast enough to stop emissions, this will escalate to catastrophic climate change through even more extreme typhoons/hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, forest fires and spread of diseases which in turn will exacerbate food and water insecurity, displacement of millions of people, suffering, sickness and death.
PROTEC’s themes each run for a full year, beginning in the SEASON OF CREATION which also starts on 1 September, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation declared by Pope Francis in 2015. This annual Season of Creation runs through to 4 October, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi. The theme of the 2021 Season of Creation (1 Sept to 4 Oct 2021) is: “A home for all? Renewing the oikos of God”.
On 3 June 2021, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei issued a letter signed by its President, Bishop Sebastian Francis and the President of the ECCJ-MSB, Bishop Joseph Hii, calling upon “all the faithful in all our dioceses to celebrate fully the Season of Creation and the PROTEC Campaign this year and in succeeding years… to love all creation and adopt an ecological way of being and living in oneness with all created beings so that all life may flourish in our common home.”
The PROTEC Campaign (Year 2) calls upon parishes, church organisations/offices/houses of formation, and all the faithful in Malaysia to adopt these practices starting now: (1) eat less meat, seafood & dairy, (2) eat more local plant-based food, (3) stop wasting food, and (4) pray for and with all creation daily.
PROTEC Year 2 will be launched in a virtual Eucharistic celebration at 10.00 am on 31 August 2021 by the Malacca- Johore Diocese at this link: https://youtu.be/bwdVRpC9mN0.
All are welcomed to join.
1 http://globalforestcoalition.org/whats-at-steak/
2 https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/livestock-climate-change-forgotten-sector-global-public-opinion-meat-and-dairy
3 https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5639-grabbing-the-bull-by-the-horns-it-s-time-to-cut-industrial-meat-and-dairy-to-save-the-climate
4 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth and http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
5 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth and http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
6 http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/
7 https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/08_Chapter-5_3.pdf
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