Pages tagged "Biodiversity"
How a Wasteland Transformed Into A Lush, Thriving Farm
In 2011, John Chester and his wife Molly set out to create a farm — but not just any farm. The California couple envisioned creating one with a biological system capable of regenerating itself. And they wanted to do it without the conventional use of pesticides or antibiotics.
It was an ambitious dream, especially considering the damaged land they were working with.
“The chemical sprays had killed most all of its biodiversity. No birds, bees or butterflies,” John says. “The soil was rock-hard and dead.”
To transform that land would be a challenging undertaking — an impossible one, to some. “Most farmers called our mission naïve,” John says.
But one farmer didn’t. Alan York supported the Chesters and became their mentor in creating a thriving, diverse sanctuary. Together, they started from square one.
“We started stocking the farm with every animal you would see in a children’s book,” John says. “We planted hundreds of varieties of orchard trees and vegetables. We even restored wildlife habitats. It was insane. But exciting.”
Slowly, the trees began to grow. The animals (including a pig named Emma) were having babies. The farm was progressing rapidly.
Then, the Chesters’ idealistic vision was about to be tested in more ways than one.
Their mentor Alan became seriously ill. Emma the pig became deathly ill after giving birth. Lambs struggled. Snails attacked the trees. The lack of ladybugs meant that crops weren’t protected from aphids. A drought threatened the farm’s water supply.
“We were in over our heads,” John says. “You could feel the skeptics gloating. We began to wonder if our standards were unreasonable.”
Times were trying, but the rains did eventually come. And with the rain, nearly everything began to change.
“As the soils got healthier, the birds and the insects showed up,” John says. “The engine of the farm’s ecosystem and been restarted.”
Lawsuit Challenges FDA's Approval of Genetically Engineered Salmon
A broad coalition of environmental, consumer, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations today sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approving the first-ever genetically engineered (GE) food animal, an Atlantic salmon engineered to grow quickly. The man-made salmon was created by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. with DNA from three fish: Atlantic salmon, Pacific king salmon, and Arctic ocean eelpout. This marks the first time any government in the world has approved a GE animal for commercial sale and consumption.
The plaintiff coalition, jointly represented by legal counsel from Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, includes Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Golden Gate Salmon Association, Kennebec Reborn, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, Ecology Action Centre, Food & Water Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Cascadia Wildlands, and Center for Food Safety.
In approving the GE salmon, FDA determined it would not require labeling of the GE fish to let consumers know what they are buying, which led Congress to call for labeling in the 2016 omnibus spending bill. FDA’s approval also ignored comments from nearly 2 million people opposed to the approval because the agency failed to analyze and prevent the risks to wild salmon and the environment, as well as fishing communities, including the risk that GE salmon could escape and threaten endangered wild salmon stocks.
AquaBounty’s GE salmon will undertake a 5,000-mile journey to reach U.S. supermarkets. The company plans to produce the GE salmon eggs on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The GE salmon will then be grown to market-size in a facility in Panama, processed into fillets, and shipped to the U.S. for sale. That complicated scheme is only for the initial approval, however. AquaBounty has publicly announced plans to ultimately grow its GE fish in the U.S. rather than Panama, and sell it around the world. Despite this, FDA’s approval only considered the current plans for the far-flung facilities in Canada and Panama, leaving the risk of escape and contamination of U.S. salmon runs unstudied.
The lawsuit challenges FDA’s claim that it has authority to approve and regulate GE animals as “animal drugs” under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Those provisions were meant to ensure the safety of veterinary drugs administered to treat disease in livestock and were not intended to address entirely new GE animals that can pass along their altered genes to the next generation. The approval of the GE salmon opens the door to other genetically engineered fish and shellfish, as well as chickens, cows, sheep, goats, rabbits and pigs that are reportedly in development.
The lawsuit also highlights FDA’s failure to protect the environment and consult wildlife agencies in its review process, as required by federal law. U.S. Atlantic salmon, and many populations of Pacific salmon, are protected by the Endangered Species Act and in danger of extinction. Salmon is a keystone species and unique runs have been treasured by residents for thousands of years. Diverse salmon runs today sustain thousands of American fishing families, and are highly valued in domestic markets as a healthy, domestic, “green” food.
When GE salmon escape or are accidentally released into the environment, the new species could threaten wild populations by mating with endangered salmon species, outcompeting them for scarce resources and habitat, and/or introducing new diseases. Studies have shown that there is a high risk for GE organisms to escape into the natural environment, and that GE salmon can crossbreed with native fish. Transgenic contamination has become common in the GE plant context, where contamination episodes have cost U.S. farmers billions of dollars over the past decade. In wild organisms like fish, it could be even more damaging.
The world’s preeminent experts on GE fish and risk assessment, as well as biologists at U.S. wildlife agencies charged with protecting fish and wildlife heavily criticized the FDA decision for failing to evaluate these impacts. FDA ignored their concerns in the final approval.
For more information, visit:
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/309/ge-fish or
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ge_seafood/
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
