12/06/2017

Today is a very important day.

It’s World Meat Free Day – and what better time to think about how we can all help work towards a better food system.

It’s also the day that Chris Darwin – great-great-grandson of naturalist Charles Darwin – is releasing his new app, The Darwin Challenge.

The app is a wonderful way of getting people to think about the wider impacts of the food on their plate. It enables users to track the benefits of having meat free days on human health and the planet. For example, by going just one day without meat you could help save 98 toilet flushes of water or 5m² of forest.

I met Chris when writing my latest book, Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were. He told me how he started out as a conservationist, keen to create huge numbers of wildlife reserves around the world to save species.

However, he soon realised that to stop the mass extinction of species, the focus needs to be on eating less meat. He impressed me with his dedication. As his great-great-grandfather examined and catalogued species, so Chris despairs as we lose them. He is in no two minds about the reason behind their decline: our appetite for cheap meat.

Chris is an environmentalist, adventurer and ambassador for Bush Heritage Australia. His fundraising helped them buy the Charles Darwin Reserve in Western Australia. I am thrilled that Chris will also be speaking at our Extinction and Livestock conference in October.

To download the app visit the App Store on your phone or mobile device and search ‘The Darwin Challenge’, and you can find out more about it here.