VOLUNTEERS from the Greenpeace York Group visited a supermarket to highlight the chain's role in the destruction of forests like the Amazon.

Members of the group gathered outside the Tesco Extra in Clifton Moor to reimagine a scene from Greenpeace’s new animation, Monster.

The animation involves a jaguar visiting a boy’s kitchen to tell him about the destruction of his forest home for industrial meat production.

Greenpeace volunteers took photos with cut-outs of the jaguar and the boy outside Tesco to raise awareness of the supermarket’s part in the destruction of forests around the world.

The group suggest that Tesco is driving this destruction by selling more soya-fed meat than any UK supermarket, much of it from companies owned by rainforest destroyers.

Xander Perry, from York, said: "Threatened wildlife such as jaguars are losing their homes to deforestation, so that’s why we are making this issue visible at Tesco in York today.

"New Tesco CEO Ken Murphy needs to take urgent action to stop fuelling the destruction of forests like the Amazon.

"Tesco sells hundreds and thousands of tonnes of industrial meat, much of it produced by companies owned by rainforest-destroyers JBS. Tesco must replace half the meat it sells with plant-based food by 2025 and cut ties with forest destroyers."

These visits followed on from a tour by Greenpeace UK of a life-size animatronic jaguar to Tesco supermarkets in Essex, Kent, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, and London.

A major investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Greenpeace Unearthed released this week has linked retailers including Tesco, Asda, Lidl, McDonalds and Nando’s to fires on farmland in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Jenna Drury, from York, said: "I recently watched Greenpeace’s new film Monster, and I’m horrified at the true extent of the devastation of forests like the Amazon caused by industrial meat production.

"I have given up eating meat, and call on Tesco to play its part and stop selling industrial meat that’s driving the destruction of the homes of indigenous people and wildlife, and contributing to the climate emergency."