Jump to navigation
By 12/23/2020
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service says protections for monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act are necessary but less pressing than those for other species on the brink. The decision comes as biologists report the lowest numbers in history for the western population of monarchs, which overwinters on California’s coast.
The federal agency was compelled to consider listing monarchs by litigation from the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Xerces Society, which rang the alarm about the decline of both the eastern population which has declined over 70 percent and the western population which has almost disappeared due to climate change, pesticide use and habitat loss. As the groups celebrated the validation of the species’ plight last week, West Marin organizations geared up to take action now.
Four public interest groups filed a lawsuit challenging EPA s five-year registration for dicamba. Soy and cotton growers filed their own lawsuit in November actually challenging the extra restrictions required by EPA, while the latest case says EPA doesn’t go far enough in controlling drift concerns.
In October, EPA registered dicamba for use on dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The soy and cotton growers’ lawsuit claims some aspects of the registration decision including buffer requirements and application cutoffs are “problematic for growers, who depend on reasonable, consistent access to dicamba for use on DT soybeans and cotton.”
David Ekstrom The EPA failed to ensure that dicamba can be used safely when it issued a five-year approval of the weedkiller, said a lawsuit that asks a federal appeals court in San Francisco to vacate the EPA registration of the herbicide. Foes say dicamba is overly prone to evaporate from where it is sprayed and to drift onto neighboring fields, orchards, gardens and trees. “We’re in court yet again because for four years, the EPA repeatedly claimed dicamba is safe and for four years, the agency has been dead wrong, resulting in millions of acres of damage,” said Nathan Donley of the Center for Biologicial Diversity. Four groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, filed the lawsuit on Monday.
For Immediate Release, December 21, 2020
Contact:
Nathan Donley; Center for Biological Diversity, (971) 717-6406, ndonley@biologicaldiversity.org
Farmers, Conservation Groups Challenge EPA’s Unlawful Re-approval of Dangerous, Drift-Prone Dicamba Pesticide
Dicamba Drift Has Damaged Soybeans, Orchards, Trees, Gardens On a Scale Never Before Seen in History of U.S. Agriculture
SAN FRANCISCO Four public interest groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s rushed re-approval of products containing the dangerous, drift-prone dicamba pesticide.
Over the past four years the dicamba products sprayed “over the top” of soybean and cotton crops genetically engineered to resist the pesticide have caused drift damage to millions of acres of soybeans as well as orchards, gardens, trees and other plants on a scale unprecedented in the history of U.S. agriculture.
Housing and Development Newsletter
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that there is a 96% to 100% probability that the western monarch population will collapse within 50 years, and an 80% probability for the species’ eastern population.
Eastern monarch butterflies, which reside on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, have faced a population decline of about 70% since the early 1990s, while the western population has seen its population decline by about 99% since the 1990s.
“Forty-seven species have gone extinct waiting for their (Endangered Species Act) protection to be finalized. This decision continues the delay in implementing a national recovery plan, which monarchs desperately need,” Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity senior scientist, said in Tuesday’s release. “Monarchs are beautiful, they play important roles in nature and culture, and their migrations are jaw-dropping. We owe them and future generations an all-in commitment to their