Climate activists are becoming increasingly recognisable thanks to the many protests they organise. You are certainly already familiar with the Extinction Rebellion group - also active in Poland – who recently removed cobblestone in Krakow to make place for a small garden.

You may also be familiar with activists from the Last Generation group, whose recent protest led to their hands almost being amputated. Now the time has come for Futuro Vegetal. Who are its activists and why they are dousing themselves in blood and damaging airplanes?

Futuro Vegetal – who are they?

Futuro Vegetal (eng. "vegetable future") is a Spanish group that focuses on the impact the food sector has on global warming. The climate activists are mainly protesting against the current agri-food model pointing out that it is largely responsible for the crisis.

That is to say, Futuro Vegetal opposes industrial animal farming, which not only contributes to animal suffering, but also has a negative impact on our planet. As studies have shown, meat-based diet harms the planet twice as much as a plant-based diet.

The topic is particularly important to them, because food industry is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. They are therefore demanding that the government stop supporting animal husbandry and start putting money into promoting organic plant-based alternatives. Thus, they are demanding changes to Spain's food system.

"Animal farming occupies the most usable and agricultural land on the planet and is largely responsible for the Earth's global deforestation. It is also responsible for more greenhouse gases production than the entire global transport sector combined," - reads the activists' official website.

Futuro Vegetal initiatives

So, as you can guess, Futuro Vegetal's actions are based not only on drawing attention to the effects of the climate crisis, but particularly focus on the food sector. Earlier this year, doused in fake blood the activists chained themselves up in a supermarket in Tenerife.

Standing in a puddle of red liquid, they wanted to draw attention to the impact of the meat industry on climate change. A month earlier they had staged a similar protest in Barcelona, and in 2022 they showed up at the Egyptian Museum.

There, they splashed a display case with a replica of a mummy with a blood-like liquid that was purposely transported in Coca-Cola bottles. With this, Futuro Vegetal wanted to draw attention to the fact that the sponsor of COP27, the most important climate summit, is a company leading the "10 worst plastic polluters" list almost every year.

Futuro Vegetal - painting yachts, destroying paintings and spilling blood

Splashing fake blood is not the only form of protest of Futuro Vegetal activists. We recently wrote about how climate activists spray-painted the yacht of a millionaire. Then they posed for photos holding a banner that read "You consume – others suffer".

They staged a similar protest at the airport some time ago, spray-painting a private jet in Ibiza. In both cases, the activists' aim was to draw attention to the indifference of the richest to the climate crisis and their excessive consumption.

The same activists explained the other day that humanity also cannot afford the luxury of sports cars owned by wealthy people either. They did that by publishing an accompanying video of them dousing a green Lamborghini with red paint.

Like other activists, Futuro Vegetal have also been involved in sticking themselves to paintings and destroying museum spaces. Last year in Madrid, they glued themselves to two paintings by Francisco Goya. This time they wanted to draw attention to global warming.

One of their latest achievements was invading the runway of Madrid's Barajas International Airport on 21 July. Two activists from Futuro Vegetal glued their hands to the runway. They wanted to make the point that it doesn't matter which party won recent elections in Spain - we should all act to reduce the effects of the climate crisis.

Source: Futuro Vegetal, Daily Mail, Canarian Weekly