MELBOURNE, Thursday 13 June 2024 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists dressed as koalas have climbed an iconic McDonald’s store in Melbourne, kicking off a campaign highlighting the fast food giant’s failure to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain.
A banner reading ‘Take Deforestation off the Menu’ was dropped under the golden arches of the iconic Clifton Hill store around 3pm with the koalas, driven from their trees by bulldozers, attracting the attention of onlookers.
The ‘Take Deforestation off the Menu’ campaign launch spotlights the role of McDonald’s, one of Australia’s biggest beef purchasers, in driving deforestation and nature destruction. Independent research commissioned by Greenpeace revealed 668,665 hectares of threatened koala habitat was bulldozed for beef production in the last five years alone — 2,400 times the size of Sydney CBD.
In a shocking video from industry event Beef Week in Rockhampton, a senior McDonald’s executive confirmed the company does not monitor deforestation down to a property level and does not exclude purchasing beef from deforested properties. He also confirmed McDonald’s is using a weak definition of deforestation to monitor forest destruction.
Australia has one of the worst rates of deforestation in the world, driven primarily by the bulldozing of forests for beef cattle grazing. Australian beef supplies 65% of McDonald’s stores globally meaning that customers around the world could be eating burgers from threatened koala habitat that was bulldozed for beef production. As global markets including the EU move rapidly towards deforestation-free beef, Australia’s big beef purchasers will need to prove there is no deforestation in their supply chains.
Gemma Plesman, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said despite the glossy marketing campaigns, McDonald’s is failing to adequately address the destruction of forests and nature in its supply chain.
“Right now the beef industry in Australia is killing native wildlife and the big beef purchasers are corporations like McDonald’s, whose customers would be shocked to learn their Big Mac is fuelling the deforestation crisis and pushing globally-iconic animals like the koala to the brink of extinction.
“Our Deforestation Scorecard assessed 10 of Australia’s biggest beef purchasers, including McDonald’s, against their commitment towards being deforestation-free by 2025 and every single one failed.
“Given deforestation has been a persistent issue in Australian beef supply chains for decades, this seriously calls into question the environmental performance of companies like McDonald’s who can not say with certainty their products are not linked to forest destruction.
“We’re sick of the PR spin from big corporations that have no idea where their beef comes from — deforestation is happening on their watch.
“We’re calling on McDonald’s to publicly aim for, and achieve, conversion and deforestation-free supply chains by 2025, using global best practice definitions, which includes protecting important regenerated forest and threatened species habitat.
“If big corporations like McDonald’s take action to change their practices, we can stop the destruction of our native wildlife and the places they call home — a vital step towards achieving the government’s election commitment to ‘no new extinctions’ in Australia.”
—ENDS—
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Kimberley Bernard on +61 407 581 404
Notes to Editor:
- High res images and interviews of today’s activity can be found here in the Greenpeace Media Library, and B Roll of the action before 4.30pm AEST
- For more information, visit: act.gp/mcdonald’s
- Greenpeace’s 2024 Deforestation Scorecard and full report can be found here
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
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