++ EuroNatur award for agronomist Anita Idel ++ great dedication to species-appropriate agriculture ++ in sustainable land management, cattle can have positive instead of negative effects on the climate and biodiversity ++
Dr. Anita Idel will receive this year’s EuroNatur award on 10 October 2024.
© Katrin Denkewitz
Idel besides a pasture with grazing cattle. “Cows are no climate killers,” she says, “but much rather humans with their fossil-driven industrialisation including synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.” Sustainable grazing promotes the overall biodiversity on pastures as well as soil formation.
© Katrin DenkewitzRadolfzell. The German veterinarian, agronomist, and author Dr. Anita Idel will receive this year’s EuroNatur award on 10 October 2024. Anita Idel has become known in particular through her 2020 book “Cows Are No Climate Killers.” In it, she refutes cows’ bad image as drivers of global warming; in sustainable land management, cattle can even contribute to absorbing carbon dioxide.
The methane emitted as part of the digestion process in cattle have put these animals under suspicion of fanning the climate emergency. Dr. Anita Idel corrects this assumption: through truly sustainable grazing, large amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide can be absorbed and laid down as humus in the soil. This is because grazing triggers a growth spurt in grasses which in turn increases their photosynthetic performance and intake of carbon dioxide. Its precondition is, however, that cattle may graze on grassland and are not chained up year-round in barns. The potential of sustainable grazing has hardly been recognized within the climate debate, let alone used, according to Idel.
“With this accolade we wish to acknowledge Anita Idel’s remarkable commitment to protecting our shared world, including the soil,” EuroNatur president Thomas Potthast explains the choice of this year’s EuroNatur award winner. “Dr. Idel has advocated for years in an exemplary fashion and with unusually high personal involvement for an animal-friendly and nature-compatible agriculture,” adds Potthast.
Background information:
EuroNatur award: The EuroNatur award is unendowed. It acknowledges outstanding achievements in conservation. Past recipients include author Jonathan Franzen, the “courageous women of Kruščica,” and the parish Mals in South Tyrol. This year’s EuroNatur award will be handed over to Dr. Anita Idel on Thursday, 10 October 2024 at 5 p.m. on the island of Mainau in Lake Constance.
EuroNatur – advocate for a better conservation policy: The work of EuroNatur has been European since the foundation’s establishment. The protection of rivers and forests, wildlife and birds in Europe has to be advanced by direct political interventions at the level of decision-makers in Brussels. This is one of the reasons why we decided in 2021 to open a branch in Belgium’s capital. We are fighting there, among other things, for a more sustainable orientation of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Inquiries: Christian Stielow, christian.stielow(at)euronatur.org, tel. +49 7732 927215
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