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Animal Abuse Resulting from Wildlife Habitat Destruction 255 found to be contaminated by GM corn, despite the fact that in 1998 Mexico declared a moratorium on transgenic corn crops in order to preserve the extraordinary biodiversity of the plant Meanwhile, in Paraguay, where (as of 2007) no law authorised the cultivation of GMOs: ‘From 1996 to 2006, surfaces devoted to soybean cultivation went from less than 2.5 million acres to million acres, an increase of 10 % a year’ (Robin 2010, p 275) To avoid losing markets and by ensuring proper labelling of crops for markets such as the European Union, the Paraguayan government ended up simply legalising the illegal crops Much the same thing happened in Brazil and Poland (Engdahl 2007), and for much the same reasons (namely EU rules on traceability and labelling of GM foods intended for human and animal consumption) (Robin 2010) The lucrative market for biofuels and GM crops has been linked to the forced takeover of communal lands, using armed men and bulldozers, as well as fraudulent claims of land title (see Robin 2010) Moreover, given that the focus of the UN mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is on minimising carbon emissions caused by the destruction of living forest biomass, there will be greater pressures to convert or modify other ecosystems, especially savannahs and wetlands, for food or biofuel (Sutherland et al 2009) In other words, forests are privileged over other types of ecosystems, and the result could well be the loss of biodiversity associated with destruction or conversion of these ‘less valued’ non-forested ecosystems Again, compulsory take-over of biodiversity-rich land of any type is not uncommon Recent land grabs in Cambodia and Laos by Vietnamese companies and the subsequent clear-felling of intact forests for the purposes of rubber plantations involves corrupt decision-making processes at elite levels and systematic contravention of existing environmental laws (Global Witness 2013) The conversion of land for commercial purposes is entirely relevant to the wellbeing and survival of nonhuman animals For example, the native woodlands demolished for cash crops such as GM soybeans in Argentina have a major impact on the habitats of animals such as pumas, jaguars, Andean cats and tapirs, which cannot survive outside this particular ecosystem (Robin 2010, p 271) Similar events are happening in places such as Indonesia, where deforestation is putting pressure on the Sumatran tiger and the orangutan (Boekhout van Solinge 2008b) Simultaneously, GMO technologies are also being applied to animals, including fish, with potentially dire consequences To put this into context it is useful to consider several other interrelated factors that are putting pressures on animal species around the world One of these is the relationship