The Plant Based Treaty
In October 2022, Herbivore Club proudly signed the Plant Based Treaty.
What is the Plant Based Treaty?
The Plant Based Treaty is a global call to place food systems at the centre of climate action, working alongside the Paris Agreement. Its aim is to:
🌳 Halt ecosystem destruction caused by animal agriculture.
🌳 Promote a shift to healthier, sustainable plant-based diets.
🌳 Restore planetary functions, biodiversity, and ecosystem services already damaged by exploitation.
We are living through interconnected crises of climate, oceans, and biodiversity. Fossil fuels and animal agriculture are the two main drivers of runaway global heating, mass deforestation, species extinction, water depletion, soil degradation, and ocean dead zones.
Fossil fuels alone cannot explain or solve the emergency — our food systems must be transformed too. Greenhouse gases are at record levels: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Animal agriculture fuels all three, and is the leading source of methane and nitrous oxide globally.
This industry also drives Indigenous land theft in the Amazon, floods marginalised communities with toxic waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses, and exposes workers to hazardous chemicals, dangerous conditions, and deep psychological trauma.
The IPCC has made clear: methane must be cut if we are to avoid collapse. Lead reviewer Durwood Zaelke called methane reduction “the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040.” Without action, temperature rises above 1.5°C will trigger catastrophic tipping points from which there is no return.
In short, all three greenhouse gases must be tackled — urgently and equally. The solutions exist: plant-based food systems and renewable energy. We simply need the will to act.
The Plant Based Treaty: Three Core Principles
1. Relinquish – Stop Making It Worse.
🌳 No deforestation or land conversion for animal agriculture or feed.
🌳 No new animal farms, slaughterhouses, or fish farms.
🌳 No expansion of existing animal facilities.
🌳 Protection of Indigenous peoples, their land, rights, and knowledge.
🌳 Ban on live exports and new industrial fishing vessels.
2. Redirect – Shift Resources and Priorities
🌳 Promote plant-based food systems and end reliance on animal exploitation.
🌳 Declare a climate emergency (as 1,900+ governments have already).
🌳 Make food security and access to nutritious plant-based diets a global priority.
🌳 Support small farmers to maintain autonomy over land, water, seeds, and resources.
🌳 Update dietary guidelines to prioritise whole-food, plant-based nutrition.
🌳 Integrate plant-based meals into schools, hospitals, prisons, and government institutions.
🌳 Honest labelling, including cancer warnings on processed meat.
🌳 Introduce a meat (including fish) tax to fund land restoration.
🌳 End subsidies and advertising for meat, dairy, eggs, and industrial fishing.
🌳 Redirect financial support to fruit, vegetable, and plant-based food production.
🌳 Provide training and resources for farmers and fisherpeople to transition to plant-based systems.
3. Restore – Actively Heal and Rebuild
🌳 Launch reforestation and ecosystem restoration projects with native species.
🌳 Expand and strictly protect Marine Protected Areas.
🌳 Replant vital carbon absorbers such as seagrass beds.
🌳 Restore mangroves, peat bogs, forests, and grasslands critical for carbon cycles.
🌳 Incentivise rewilding and agroecological farming.
🌳 Increase urban biodiversity through trees, wildflowers, green roofs, and wildlife corridors.
🌳 Return land to Indigenous communities and shift ownership into community hands for rewilding, food justice, and green spaces.
🌳 Guarantee access to healthy food for all, especially low-income communities.
Take Action
🌱 See who has already signed and add your name here: Plant Based Treaty.