Our guest speaker for the October Green Drinks is Kat Macmillan, Chair of www.SAFE.org.nz. Kat will share the work SAFE is doing towards ending animal suffering and improving impact on the planet and human health.
She will speak to the following questions:
Are animals at the centre of the polycrisis
Could the New Zealand economy thrive without intensive animal agriculture
Could human health benefit from transforming the food system
Did you know?
- Agriculture is responsible for over half of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions (53%), primarily from animal agriculture.
- Animal agriculture, particularly intensive dairy farming, is the primary driver of freshwater degradation and a major consumer of water resources in Aotearoa New Zealand.
- At least 128 million land animals are intensively, or ‘factory’, farmed in New Zealand each year.
- Nearly 2 million (1,930,000) newly born calves are slaughtered each year in Aotearoa (Bobby Calves).
- New Zealand has lost approximately 90% of its original wetlands, with the vast majority drained and converted into productive animal agricultural pasture.
- New Zealand imported a record-high 2.6 million metric tonnes of palm kernel expeller (a product from tropical palm oil monoculture grown on cleared rainforest) during the 2025 calendar year.
Join us for this glance into the work of SAFE, ‘… transforming systems that exploit animals (and us all) by creating an unstoppable force for change.’
Thursday 29th October, 2026
5.30pm - 7pm
Basestation, 148 Durham Street, Tauranga, downstairs in the Babbage Space