Belgium Bans Kangaroo Meat Trade Amid Animal Welfare Concerns

In a significant move, the Belgian government has announced plans to ban the trade and sale of kangaroo meat and products by July 2026. Belgium is the second-largest importer of kangaroo meat, with the broader European Union being the top destination for these exports from Australia.

However, the kangaroo meat industry has faced growing scrutiny in recent years due to concerns over animal welfare. An Australian parliamentary report from October 2021 detailed brutal practices in the kangaroo export trade, including the government's inability to properly monitor whether hunting was carried out humanely and a lack of data on the number of orphaned joeys (juvenile kangaroos) euthanized during legal culls.

These concerns have resonated in Belgium, where major supermarket chains like Aldi and Lidl stopped selling kangaroo meat in 2020. The Flemish government has now officially informed the European Parliament of its plan to ban kangaroo meat and skin imports, citing the "animal-unfriendly manner" in which over 1.1 million to 1.3 million kangaroos are killed annually in Australia for the global market.

The upcoming ban in Belgium is expected to have a significant impact on the broader kangaroo trade in the European region, as the country is a major importer of these products. The move underscores the growing emphasis on conservation, biodiversity, and animal welfare in regulating the wildlife trade.