Every summer, helicopters fly over recently logged forests in Canada, spraying glyphosate herbicide over the landscape.
The goal? To wipe out almost all trees except for a few species valued for the logging industry.
Glyphosate — the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup — poisons the land and disrupts the balance of forests. [1] Diverse ecosystems that serve the needs of First Nations, local communities and countless plants, animals and insects, are turned into near monocultures that serve one need: a logging company’s cheapest way to turn profit.
In Ontario, First Nations have been calling for an end to glyphosate spraying for decades. Groups like the TEK Elders have been sounding the alarm on plummeting numbers of beaver, porcupine, birds, and bees. [2] The widespread changes in the forest impact First Nations’ relationship with their traditional territories.
Yet Premier Doug Ford is refusing to listen, once again choosing to put industry profits over the environment, Indigenous rights, and the health of Ontarians.
Spraying Ontario’s precious forests with glyphosate is completely unnecessary. Quebec banned all herbicides for forestry in 2001, and Ontario could easily follow and set the example for other Canadian provinces. [3]
United, we have the power to stop “the rain of death”. Ontario’s forests are already in terrible shape after repeated attacks by the Ford government. [4]
Let’s push Doug Ford to ban glyphosate spraying today!
- https://rabble.ca/news/2021/05/stopping-rain-death-canadas-forests
- http://tekelders.weebly.com/position-paper.html
- https://mern.gouv.qc.ca/english/publications/forest/publications/Roy-A.pdf
- https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/06/30/news/ontario-extends-logging-industry-exemption-endangered-species-law