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Conservation Group to Sponsor Pesticide Apologist
On Thursday April 12 at 7:00 pm, Leonard Gianessi of the CropLife Foundation
will present "War of the Weeds" in the Byrd Auditorium at
the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, WV.
Wrapped in the guise of "true sustainability" and "food
security," the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown,
West Virginia is hosting this pro-pesticide and pro-herbicide presentation.
The National Conservation Training Center wraps itself in images of
Rachel Carson and has the following mission: "The National Conservation
Training Center trains and educates natural resource managers to accomplish
our common goal of conserving fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats.
As the "home of the Fish and Wildlife Service," NCTC brings
exceptional training and education opportunities to Service employees
and others."
NCTC plans on doing a national teleconference with Mr Gianessi. This
broadcast will go to the desk of extension agents, fish and game workers
and educators across the country. This is your tax dollars at work for
the big chemical companies. It is really inappropriate that this information
is coming through the auspices of a conservation organization.
ACTION TO TAKE
Please contact the following individuals to protest the use of tax payer
monies for this presentation.
Mr. Rick Lemon
Director
National Conservation Training Center (NCTC)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Shepherdstown, WV
304-876-7263
Mark Madison, Ph.D.
Historian
National Conservation Training Center
698 Conservation Way
Shepherdstown, WV 25443-9713
304 876-7276
304 876-7270 (fax)
http://training.fws.gov/history/index.html
TALKING POINTS
Can we put an economic value on our breasts, on our prostates, on the
fertility of our children, on our environmental health, or on the health
of wildlife? If we are intelligent we won't do this, but on April 12,
Leonard Gianessi, a pesticide industry spokesman disguised as an educator,
will ask us to do just that.
Although the major herbicide used in the US has been banned in Europe
because it is a documented endocrine disrupter and in dosages as low
as parts per million is responsible for such diverse effects as breast
cancer and feminization of male animals, Mr. Gianessi will present the
argument that the use of herbicides is necessary for the economic success
of farming and for staving off hunger in this country. He will try to
convince the audience that " modern agricultural technology provides
the clearest path to true sustainability. " Mr Gianessi's "agricultural
technology" includes chemicals and genetic engineering.
Besides promoting chemicals that negatively affect all of our lives
and are known to pollute areas up to 600 miles from their application
site, Mr Gianessi is a national spokesman for BT corn, a genetically
engineered product currently implicated by German scientists in the
world-wide die off of honeybees.
Organic farmers do not use herbicides and with proper management weeds
do not present a substantial threat to crop production. In fact, by
not using expensive petrochemical-based herbicides, a farmer may have
lower productivity but a higher overall net profit.
Endocrine disrupting pesticides have been banned in Europe. In the
US, however, the EPA has dragged its feet for over ten years, failing
to even identify problems with endocrine disrupters in the environment.
The fear that the US will follow Europe in banning environmentally harmful
chemicals is undoubtedly the impetus behind Mr Gianessi's presentation
at NCTC.
Why should a federal conservation organization provide a public platform
for a presentation that advocates environmental contaminants as necessary
to prevent hunger or as essential to sustainablility.
This situation is all the more poignant because the Potomac River that
NCTC is sited near has almost 100% feminization of its smallmouth bass
population and signs of intersex in two other species. Although the
causes of intersex are "open to opinion," herbicides are strongly
implicated in the fish problems in the Potomac.
For more information on this event or on the effects of herbicides on
humans and wildlife, please contact Allan Balliett
.
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