ANIMAL REBELLION: MCDONALDS ACTION

...AND IF YOU KNOW YOUR HISTORY - PART 2: The Best Known of the Co-Founders of the Greatest Cause on Earth, Donald Watson

On Saturday 21st of May, 2021 around 100 Animal Rebels shut-down all four McDonald’s distribution centres across the UK.

The blockade lasted from 19-30 hours, and we paralysed the supply chain of the biggest fast food chains in the world and a symbol of the animal and climate exploitation industries. This is only the beginning. McDonald’s hold a very large slice of the take away pie! 80% of Amazon Deforestation is caused by Animal Agriculture (reported by WWF). McDonald’s has been shown to source products from illegally deforested areas, and 1-2 acres of rainforest are cleared every second, most of it due to beef production. 77% of land used for agriculture is used for meat and dairy, yet animal-based food only contributed 18% of global calories! This has to change if humans are to survive beyond the next 10 years. We can’t continue to feed animals, to feed us.

Sit ins are now an ongoing part of the action. These have been inspired by the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins during the civil rights movement in America. They were a form of non-violent direct action, where participants peacefully opposed segregation by sitting at lunch counters until they were removed, building a pressure campaign where they would keep coming back and disrupting this racist system. This action helped to catalyse the end of state sanctioned segregation in America, demonstrating that direct action like this can trigger real social change. We will be doing this in McDonalds each week, until they publicly respond to us, and commit to change their menu. Burger King has. They are having four days with a plant based menu only this week, following our action in Germany.