Dale Stiller discusses the WWF's Roundtable for Sustainable Beef campaign:
In the quest of others to create an image, Australian beef producers are at the mercy of a cynical business arrangement that has little to do with the realities of science, environment, production, improved beef prices or the best interests of Australian beef producers. The business arrangement is between international titans of the beef trade and the largest international environment organisation or ENGO, WWF.
Any advertising agency can tell you that a well-known brand name or logo is a powerful marketing tool. The panda logo of WWF is an image internationally very well known. These multi-national corporations that trade in beef including JBS, Cargill, Walmart and McDonalds are looking to engage with WWF in a partnership to obtain an endorsement of the panda logo for a marketing edge. These image-makers first met in Denver, Colorado in November 2010 at a conference convened by WWF for the Roundtable for Sustainable Beef.
Image appears to be also on the mind of one Australian industry body, Cattle Council Australia, who has engaged in the roundtable of sustainable beef process. Recently on the 27th April in the CCA forum, Your Say Beef 2015 and Beyond, CCA councillor Hamish Munro said,
“By not engaging with NGO's (like WWF and RSPCA, which are the more moderate), we as an industry run the risk of becoming irrelevant within the environmental and welfare policy development area and we would project an image of apathy for the environment and animal welfare.”
Image is important but even more so is accountability. Can beef producers trust WWF to be accountable to a beef sustainability plan? Let us look beyond our known history of rural landowners “engagement” with WWF in the failings of the vegetation management laws and reef regulation. How accountable is WWF in its activities across the world stage in this current day? In seeking to answer these questions let us establish if WWF is a moderate organisation as CCA has proposed.
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Dale Stiller is the secretary of Property Rights Australia, and a beef producer on a family farm in the upper reaches of the Dawson river catchment in Queensland. Dale also manages and harvests areas of natural regenerating forest within the western hardwoods forest region.
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