Professor Pulina, one of the first signatories of the Dublin Declaration, responds to the criticisms and attacks suffered by the hundreds of scientists who, like him, signed the appeal.

I am among the signatories of the Dublin Declaration on the Societal Role of Livestock, a document I signed with conviction, and which we also helped disseminate through the Carni Sostenibili website. The Declaration was born in 2022 from an international summit held in Dublin, and within a few months, it garnered the support of over 1,200 scientists from around the world. Its message, simple and precise, states that livestock animals are an integral and indispensable part of sustainable food systems and that farming methods must be evaluated with rigorous scientific criteria, not with slogans or ideologies.

The Declaration does not promote specific production models or defend commercial interests. Still, it suggests that the future of livestock farming be guided by the best available experimental evidence, capable of valuing the contributions that animals make to humanity from nutritional, ecological, and socio-economic perspectives. The Charter also states that “livestock systems must progress based on the highest scientific standards” and that “sustainable livestock farming must operate within the limits of the planet, the only one we have.”

Recently, however, the Declaration has been attacked in the pages of the journal Environmental Science and Policy by Krattenmacher et al. (2024), who dismissed it as an alleged tool at the service of the meat industry. A serious accusation based on “methodologically weak discursive analyses, based on a very limited number of documents and subjective codings without theoretical support.” This is the central thesis of the response article to the attack published by Belk et al. (2025), which refutes the criticisms point by point, arguments with which, as a signatory of the Declaration, I completely agree, as I had the opportunity to communicate directly to the colleagues who drafted the paper.

The authors, all signatories of the Declaration, highlight that the conclusions of Krattenmacher et al. are built on inconsistent foundations and denounce the risk that such an operation compromises trust in science, rendering it an ideological battleground. The article firmly defends the open and pluralistic approach of the Declaration, which embraces different scientific views and remains agnostic on issues such as the ideal numerical size of farms or the most appropriate model of animal production.

Furthermore, how alleged conflicts of interest are handled is called into question, a serious accusation considering that it has been directed at over 1,200 scientists working in universities and research institutions worldwide. On the one hand, Krattenmacher et al. preface the document by emphasising the ties of the signatories with the livestock sector, all of which are in any case publicly declared (how could it be otherwise? Those who study a productive sector must still be aware of the reference reality). On the other hand, they do not highlight the economic and ideological connections that link the main anti-farming campaigns to private foundations and well-organised pressure groups.

Finally, Belk et al. assert the right to call things by their name: simplifications, reductionisms, and ideological fanaticisms, which unfortunately increasingly permeate public debate, represent serious and real obstacles to constructing sustainable solutions. And science cannot remain silent.