• Protecting Water and Farmland in Simcoe County

Doug Ford must stop the “rain of death”

By
In Agriculture
Jul 14th, 2021
3 Comments
1040 Views
Helicopter spraying glyphosate over newly growing forest

By Reykia Fick, Nature and Food Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada

It is known as the “rain of death”.

Every summer, helicopters spray vast quantities of glyphosate over newly growing forests.

This herbicide poison — key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup — kills indiscriminately, wiping out the trees, shrubs and plants that regrow following a clearcut.

The goal? To wipe out almost all trees except for a few species valued for the logging industry.

In other words, natural forests are being systematically destroyed and replaced by near monocultures of pine and spruce. As you might guess, this means less habitat for wildlife. [1] It also means hotter and drier forests that are more prone to devastating forest fires. [2] And that’s not all.

Glyphosate can remain in the ecosystem for years, absorbed into plants that survive the initial spray. [3] First Nation leaders like the TEK Elders — Traditional Ecological Knowledge keepers  — have been observing serious, ongoing declines of wildlife in sprayed areas, including beaver, porcupine, birds and bees. The situation is becoming increasingly dire. [4] They have been calling for an end to glyphosate spraying for decades, join them today. 

Premier Doug Ford is refusing to listen.

Spraying Ontario’s precious forests with glyphosate is completely unnecessary. This practice is already banned in Quebec. [5] Ontario can easily follow and set the example for other provinces.

Doug Ford is putting the environment, Indigenous rights, and Ontarians’ health at risk for industry profits.

It’s time to take a stand against Ford’s assault on forests and ban glyphosate spraying in Ontario.    Take action to stop this now.

[1] https://rabble.ca/news/2021/05/stopping-rain-death-canadas-forests

[2] https://rabble.ca/news/2021/05/stopping-rain-death-canadas-forests

[3] https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/cjfr-2018-0331

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRt8_DjqLoA , http://tekelders.weebly.com/position-paper.html

[5] https://topclassactions.com/canada/roundup/is-roundup-banned-in-canada/

3 Responses to “Doug Ford must stop the “rain of death””

  1. Jim H Partridge says:

    What drivel; an emotion laden article, without serious scientific analysis.

    • chris harries says:

      In today’s mews:
      “Bayer will no longer sell glyphosate-containing products to U.S. home gardeners, the company announced on Thursday.

      “The move comes as the company currently faces around 30,000 legal claims from customers who believe use of these products — including the flagship Roundup — caused them to develop cancer, as AgWeb reported.

      “Bayer’s decision to end U.S. residential sale of Roundup is a historic victory for public health and the environment,” Center for Food Safety executive director Andrew Kimbrell said in a statement. “As agricultural, large-scale use of this toxic pesticide continues, our farmworkers remain at risk. It’s time for EPA to act and ban glyphosate for all uses.”

      “Glyphosate is a controversial ingredient because it has been linked to the development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as Cure noted. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that it was “probably carcinogenic to humans,” in 2015. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former President Donald Trump ruled that the chemical did not pose any risk to human health, the Biden Administration later admitted that the review was flawed and needed to be redone, as Common Dreams reported. Still, it refused to take it off the market in the meantime….”
      And Mr Partridge calls criticism of programmes spraying the poison from aircraft “emotion laden and “without scientific analysis.”
      Even the manufacturers know better.

  2. Donna Deneault says:

    I think these 5 links provided for us should all be reviewed.

Leave a Reply to Donna Deneault Cancel reply

Commenters must post under real names. AWARE Simcoe reserves the right to edit or not publish comments. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *