New Zealand condemns Heather Mills' anti-meat campaign

Nov 22, 2007, 17:05 GMT

Wellington - New Zealand Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton said Thursday that British celebrity Heather Mills was deluded in a campaign against eating meat and dairy products that she launched this week in London.

'The claim that you can't be an environmentalist if you eat meat and dairy products is wrong,' Anderton said.

Mills, 39, estranged wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney, warned about the environmental impact of deforestation and livestock on global warming when she launched a billboard campaign in London's Hyde Park for the Vegetarians International Voice for Animals.

'Ironically, in launching the campaign, Ms Mills arrived in a carbon-spilling four-wheel drive, which was kept running for part of the launch,' Anderton said.

'That the picture on one billboard associating meat and dairy with a burnt out wasteland and hellish fires suggests Ms Mills has never seen a New Zealand dairy farm. For her information, they are lush and green.'

New Zealand is the world's biggest single exporter of butter, cheese and other dairy products and a major supplier of sheep meat to Europe and beef to the United States and Asia.

'I don't think Ms Mills is an especially reliable source of credible scientific information, but the danger is that some people will take these claims seriously because of her celebrity status,' Anderton said. 'People may think there must be something in it.'

He said the campaign showed that there was a rising tide of consumer concern over environmental issues and over carbon emissions in the production process.