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Australia: Health in Tasmania gravely affected by pesticide use in tree monocultures Between 1994 and 2004 the land converted from native forests and farms to monoculture tree plantations in Tasmania has increased almost fourfold – to 207,000 hectares. Most farms replaced were organic or used relatively few chemicals as compared to the highly chemically-dependent monoculture tree coupes that replaced them. Pesticides are now used on an extraordinary scale. Taking full advantage of the exemptions to planning and environmental legislation and the general regulatory failure at all levels of Government to control pesticide use, the industry disperses toxic chemicals in cowboy fashion over thousands of hectares above tree canopies, at high altitude and over very large and broad areas of land. The toxic drift then further scatters over household rooves that collect rainwater for families, into until recently pristine creeks and rivers, over and in town water catchments and temperate rainforest alike. Not one patch of Tasmania is likely to be protected from a poisonous mist and runoff that must surely play a large part in the alarming climb in overall cancer rates and other inexplicable disease epidemics here. Countless complaints about drinking water contamination and likely impacts on adjacent food farming went almost entirely unheeded. Preventative actions, whether adequate or not, were only implemented when community action was particularly vocal or public. When Derby, Lorinna and West Calder drinking water became contaminated with the toxic triazines residents took action by establishing the Tasmanian Clean Water Network. Its purpose was to campaign for change in chemical use by way of warning the public about the breakdown of chemical regulation in Tasmania in particular. In early 2004 a major oyster kill hit the aquaculture industry in North East Tasmania. The oyster growers lost $1.5 million dollars worth of stock overnight. Dr Marcus Scammell, a marine biologist, published a report that with the help of unprecedented media attention rang alarm bells across the State. His writing aptly and further emphasised the vulnerability of people, industry and ecosystems from the effects of the uncontrolled use of pesticides in Tasmania. Subsequent testing of surface waters in the George River showed sections of the river were toxic to living organisms. A local doctor in the area, Dr Alison Bleaney, supported calls by Dr Scammell for the implementation of the precautionary principle. She further highlighted the chemical dangers by bringing to public attention a surge in cancer and neurological cases in north-eastern Tasmania since 2002 which she believed was consistent with chronic low-level chemical exposure. However, no epidemiological studies have ensued to investigate possible cancer and other disease clusters that could correlate with pesticides. State-wide changes in cancer incidence are raising deep concerns. Between 1980 and 1999 for instance there was: - A 67% increase in the incident
rate for non-Hodgkins lymphoma; The state also has the highest percentage of people suffering diabetes in Australia. with more than 5000 new cases having been recorded here in the last three years. That represents an “epidemic that has the potential to cripple the health system according to Christopher Stopp, Tasmanian chief executive of Diabetes Australia” Multiple Sclerosis is 7 times more common in Tasmania than in Northern Queensland. And “Tasmania has much higher rates of coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension and high blood cholesterol than other Australian States.” Industry practice hides behind the limited science of toxicology to justify dangerous practices. Citizens have no defence when the onus of proof of harm is placed on the unresourced families and children who suffer the pesticides not only in their food and water but also in their bodies. The 2003 Total Diet Survey carried out by Foods Standards Australia New Zealand found residues of 36 different types of pesticides in a range of commonly eaten foods in Australia. But this was only a limited testing regime. Tasmanian and Victorian residents have raised concerns about pesticide take up by grazing animals including dairy cattle but media and Government action in this dilemma has been almost completely ineffective in terms of protecting people and the environment. Ironically there are no long-term economic justifications for large scale and intensive use of pesticides. Such practices merely herald in the consequences of corporate absentee land ownership and the drive for such 'enterprises' to reduce the cost of labour and maximise profits in the short term. It’s clear, from the large body of evidence already available worldwide, that we are now experiencing the effects of long-term exposure. This is likely to extend to future generations even in the unlikely event that pesticide use were to stop today. By Brenda J Rosser, Tasmanian
Clean Water Network, e-mail: rosserbj@bigpond.com,
www.geocities.com/rosserbj,
based on: “Tasmania Name Your Poison”, Channel 9 Sunday
Program, 26th September 2004; “Private timber reserves are
exempt from the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act and the Environmental
Management and Pollution Control Act”; “General Regulatory
Failure of Pesticides in Tasmania and Australia”, http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/pesticides_generalinfo.html;
“Pesticide Abuse in Tasmania”, www.geocities.com/rosserbj;
“Pesticide drift in the atmosphere”, http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/drift.html;
“More Cancer and a Higher Mortality in Tasmania”, http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/cancer_rates.html;
“Cancer in Tasmania 1980-1999”, Tasmanian Cancer Registry,
Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania, as cited from
Pete Godfrey’s submission on Review of Taxation Treatment
of Plantation Forestry, 10/07/05; “State's Diabetes Dilemma”,
Mark Baker, The Examiner, Monday 8th August 2005, page 1 and 2;
Christopher Stopp, Tasmanian chief executive of Diabetes Australia
from the article op cited; Menzies Centre, Tasmania, Professor Terry
Dwyer, released by Nicolas Turner; Tasmanian Department of Health
and Human Services, http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/publichealth/foodandnutrition/policy.html;
Limited science of Toxicology, http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/toxicology_limits.html;
No long term economic justifications, http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/longterm_pests.html
Chile: The impacts of monoculture tree plantations on Mapuche medicine Annexation of Mapuche territory by the Chilean State and the imposition of its legal system on all the indigenous peoples that co-exist in the country have marked deep changes in the way of life of the Mapuche people. Between 1881 and 1907, stripped of their territory, their autonomy and their assets generated as an agricultural and cattle-raising society, the Mapuche people fell prey to hunger and to disease that took around twenty thousand victims. With millenary experience, the Mapuche people had known how to accumulate a wealth of knowledge in different fields, among them health. The concept of health is not to be found in the Mapuche conceptual repertoire, because it is integrated in all the occurrences of life itself. That is to say, being well, being unwell is health. In every moment lived, however humdrum it may be, the flow of life is evaluated. At each meeting between people, there is time to ask after their state of health, and thus this meeting becomes a constant self-assessment by people about themselves, their family and their surroundings. To be well or unwell consists of the individual as such being in equilibrium with him/herself and with his/her peers, family, and closest and dearest beings. You must also be in equilibrium with your social, cultural, political, environmental, territorial, religious and cosmic surroundings. Based on this comprehensive concept of health, the Mapuche people developed a vast field of knowledge to help them resolve disease, based on the use of various medicinal resources mainly obtained in the forest. However, both these resources and access to them have been constricted insofar as the constructions of villages, towns and highways, the extension of the railway and the installation of large landed properties brought with them an increase in forest exploitation. Re-arrangement of the territory to suit the interests of the Chilean State also put an end to the traditional routes used by the various Mapuche identities, hindering the exchange of medicinal plants from different ecological environments. To this was added the discredit that the vast diversity of specialists in Mapuche medicine were subject to. Throughout decades of intervention, from Christian churches and health institutions, real campaigns to discredit indigenous knowledge were carried out, causing a drop in the number of specialists and strong dependency on the official health care system: a discriminatory system, unable to satisfy the needs of the most underprivileged sectors and still less of the Mapuche residents in rural zones with difficulties in access due to the great distances and with barriers set up to ignore cultural diversity. However, the Mapuche people, whenever possible, preserved wilderness areas or natural ecosystems that were reservoirs of their traditional medicine because they contained a wide range of medicinal plants. Gathering is done under cultural precepts traditionally defined by Mapuche customary law. From this perspective there are places that can be used by human beings for dwellings and production, while there are other places that have “ngen” (a master spirit that looks after the elements that have been entrusted to it). In these spaces it is possible to observe a wide categorization related with the soil characteristics, presence of water, size and existence of certain species, where human beings must act with respect and reverence. If some element is necessary, permission must be asked from the ngen, taking out what is necessary, paying retribution with something, and praying for its effectiveness. The existence of these spaces is vital for the continuity of Mapuche medicine, because it is there that the plants develop their newen (force or power) and because it is in some of these places that the Machi – the persons entrusted with carrying out therapeutic ritual and all those actions aimed at specific knowledge of the disease and its eradication – find their materials to prepare the necessary elements to carry out their ritual role (such as the rewe or alter, or musical instruments such as the kultrung whose rhythm marks the different phases of the struggle against the agents that have intervened in unleashing the disease). Over the last few decades, the consolidation of the neo-liberal model has promoted an economic growth model based on depredation of the environment and the exclusion of various social sectors. With regard to the Mapuche people and their medicine, this has implied a considerable decrease in their therapeutic resources, and even the extermination of some species. One of the main agents in this depredation has been the expansion of forestry companies that introduced themselves into Mapuche territory, taking advantage of the conditions generated by the Pinochet dictatorship. During this time, not only was the transfer of lands to private companies encouraged but land tenure deeds were granted to community members, thus disarticulating the community system and allowing sale of land to non-Mapuche people, harbouring deceit and abuse. Forestry companies exploited many native forests and then replaced them with pine and eucalyptus plantations, species of greater profitability due to their rapid rate of growth. In a veritable forestry invasion, the plantations have spread to other spaces, such as the mallines (humid environments where natural grasses grow), grasslands and flat lowland plains (grasslands in zones where there is water) traditionally used for crops. The vast plantations surrounding the communities cause, on the one hand considerable decrease in water courses, aridity in soils and extermination of a great number of medicinal species. On the other hand, in many zones and as a consequence of spraying from the air to control organisms affecting the plantations, water is polluted and impacts are felt on fruit trees, medicinal plants that have managed to survive and on crops. Many animals, birds and insects that maintained the ecological balance have also disappeared. All this has caused disorders in the health of people and domestic animals, leading to a serious deterioration of the Mapuche families’ economy. Extermination of plants in many Mapuche communities together with difficulty in accessing them have currently become a recurring issue in the Machis’ discourse, who find their work hindered: “The remedies of the earth are very important but they no longer exist, they have been exterminated by the wingka (“the other”, white men) by fire and furthermore they have planted pines, they have planted eucalyptus, that is why the remedies have finished, there are no lawen (plants), they have gone” (a Machi from Rüpücura). Since the arrival of the Spaniards, the Mapuche people have seen their world completely upset and have had to adapt to adverse circumstances in their communities. They have even been evicted to the belts around the cities, where most of the population is now concentrated. However the Mapuche continue to generate mechanisms for resistance to preserve their cultural, linguistic, political and religious characteristics. Faced by the invasion of their territory by trees that are ending their medicinal resources while worsening health problems due to contamination, the Mapuche defend their territorial space, firmly express their demands, often having to face repressive forces. Article based on information from: “Intervención Externa y Medicina Mapuche”, Ivonne Jelves Mella, Centro de Documentación Mapuche, http://www.Mapuche.info/mapuint/jelvesMella030325.html; “Propuesta para una política de salud en Territorios Mapuche”, Unidad de Salud con Población Mapuche, Servicio de Salud Araucania Sur, Equipo Mapuche de Cogestión en Salud, http://www.Mapuche.info/mapuint/sssmap020400.pdf
Health Threats of Genetically Engineered Trees The human health risks associated with plantations of genetically engineered trees, though virtually unstudied, are significant and further legitimize the call to globally ban GE trees. The health risks can be broken down into the following categories: exposure to hazardous chemicals (such as the herbicide RoundUp) applied to the plantations; the harmful effects of inhaling pollen from trees that produce the bacterial toxin Bt; the risks associated with consumption of fruit from GE trees; and the threats of using antibiotic resistant markers in the development of GE trees. The two traits in genetically engineered trees that are closest to commercial use are also the two traits that may have the most dangerous effects on health: herbicide resistance and insect resistance. Trees are being genetically engineered to withstand applications of Monsanto’s herbicide RoundUp. In agriculture, the use of so-called “RoundUp ready” crop plants has led to massive increases in the use of the herbicide of 300 to 600%. While most of the studies of the impacts of this herbicide have focused on its active ingredient, glyphosate, scientific studies have shown that the additional ingredients in RoundUp make it twice as toxic as glyphosate alone. The Institute of Science in Society reported in July of this year that, “an epidemiological study in the Ontario farming populations showed that glyphosate exposure nearly doubled the risk of late term spontaneous abortions.” They continued, reporting that several recent studies “suggested an association between glyphosate use and the risk of the cancers non-Hodgkins lymphoma... and multiple myeloma.” The environmental persistence demonstrated by RoundUp of up to 360 days in some ecosystems, coupled with the fact that it is commonly found as a contaminant in rivers lead to concerns for the health of people or wildlife that would live adjacent to future RoundUp Ready tree plantations. Even more serious, however, are the threats from inhaling the herbicide. Numerous studies have found that inhaling RoundUp is much more dangerous than ingesting it orally. RoundUp Ready GE tree plantations are anticipated to be sprayed with RoundUp from the air, where it would drift into nearby communities who would be thus seriously impacted on their health. Trees are also being engineered to kill insects by producing the bacterial toxin Bt in every cell of the tree. Dr. Terje Traavik of Norway reports that on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, an entire village living adjacent to genetically engineered Bt maize fields came down with “respiratory, intestinal and skin reactions and fever,” during the time that the maize plants were pollinating. Antibodies indicating an immune reaction to the Bt maize pollen was found in their blood. When the people left the area, their symptoms subsided, but upon return to the village, the ailments also returned. Engineering trees to produce Bt toxin could be far more dangerous. Pines, for example, are known for their extremely heavy pollination. They are also known to spread their pollen for hundreds of kilometers. The establishment of plantations of pines that produce Bt pollen could lead to widespread outbreaks of sickness. Dr. Traavik further reports that scientific studies have also identified Bt as an “enabling agent, which increases a person’s susceptibility to other allergens and immunogens.” He questions if this fact may be related to the incredible increases in recent years of the numbers of people experiencing allergy symptoms in countries where GE foods are consumed. An additional concern arises from animal studies of the effects of Bt that found that Bt remains active in mammals that have eaten it and may in fact bind to the intestines, leading to “significant structural disturbances and intestinal growth.” Further concerns about allergic reactions from GE trees come from consuming the fruits from those trees. In Hawaii and Thailand, for example, papaya trees have been engineered to resist the devastating ring spot virus. However, a study published in BioMed Central Structure Biology found that these GE papaya contain a ringspot virus coat protein that includes a string of amino acids identical to a known allergen. Because the GE papaya on the Big Island of Hawaii have contaminated over 50% of wild and organic papaya trees there, people have no way of knowing if the papaya they are eating has been contaminated by this potential allergen. The final health concern this article will address is the threat from using antibiotic resistant markers to identify GE plants. In genetic engineering, antibiotic resistant markers are included in the genetic material inserted into the engineered organism. This enables scientists to easily determine if the genetic material has been successfully incorporated into the organism by applying antibiotics. If the organism survives, it means that it contains the genetic material with the antibiotic resistant marker. The British Medical Association (BMA), in a November, 2002 report stated, “There is a significant risk that antibiotic resistance markers may progress through the food chain, possibly into pathogenic organisms causing human disease.” Already doctors are being challenged by the emergence of contagious viruses that are resistant to antibiotics. The use of antibiotic resistant markers in genetic engineering threatens to exacerbate this already deadly situation. The BMA continues, stating, “the use of antibiotic resistant markers in GM foodstuffs is a completely unacceptable risk … and we therefore believe that the use of antibiotic resistant markers in GMOs be prohibited immediately.” In a sweeping statement that could apply to all of the risks of GE trees listed above, the British Medical Association concludes, “We believe there is a greater need for more comprehensive risk assessment which include interactions between GMOs and the long term effects on health and the environment before field trials are taken any further.” By Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project, E-mail: globalecology@gmavt.net, http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/
The unhealthy smell of money in forest fires
Since the 1982-83 wildfires in Indonesia (which were recorded as the largest forest fires in that century), fire has been a recurring event in the country, causing massive damage within its borders as well as for its neighboring countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore. In 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2002, millions of hectares of montane and lowland forests, of peat and swamp forest were burning while massive movements of population and animals flew the fires. The haze covered an area almost the size of Europe, disrupted aviation and shipping for months and caused serious health problems, choking even far distant cities where schools and airports had to be closed, and traffic slowed to a crawl as nothing could be seen beyond a short distance. The acrid smell of burning vegetation filled the air. Though the El Niño event brought about in 1997 a severe drought, the fires were fuelled because many of Indonesia's forests have been badly damaged by logging: legal and illegal. Overexploitation opened up the forest canopy and, in the absence of rain, the forest became tinder dry. On the other hand, the extensive forest conversion
policy lies at the root of the forest fires problem. The Government
of Indonesia plans to convert millions of hectares of forest to
agricultural, oil palm and timber plantations. Every year, 1 to
2 billion metric tons of plant biomass is burned by plantation companies
in their concessions as the cheapest tool to clear their land for
oil palm and timber plantations. A large percentage of all wildfires
result from that. In 1997, PT Torus Ganda, a plantation company
operating in Riau, Sumatra, was the first of a large list of 176
companies publicly accused of starting fires to clear land. Warnings of the World Health Organisation about health impacts of the smoke relate to short-term and long-term cancer implications. The fires increase the risk of acute respiratory infections, a major killer of young children. The comparison of medical data reported during the 1997/1998 forest fire events in South-east Asia with corresponding data in 1995/1996 revealed the following impact of smoke on public health: the number of cases of pneumonia increased 5-25 times in South-east Kalimantan (Borneo) and 1.5-5 times in South Sumatra; the number of outpatient visits with respiratory diseases in Malaysia increased 2 to 3-fold; in September 1997 in Jambi (Sumatra), the number of reported cases of upper respiratory tract infections was 50% higher than in the previous month. In the 2002 forest fires, the health and lives of about 4 million Indonesian people were affected in Central Kalimantan. Thirty years from now they will suffer from the effects of smoke inhalation in the form of serious respiratory illnesses, including lung cancer. Some put the blame equally on local farmers and large plantation companies for the present fires. Dayak indigenous peoples in Kalimantan, have been traditionally carrying out shifting cultivation for thousands of years in tune with their natural environment (so-called “slash and burn” agriculture). They have experiences and strict traditional rules of using fire to clear small plots of agricultural land. Those traditional and low-impact practices cannot be compared with large-scale land clearance by plantation companies through equally large-scale fires that destroy huge areas of forest. According to the experience of past fires, a terrible toll on their health lays ahead for the people affected by the present one. Also in line with past experience, oil palm plantation companies –mostly of Malaysian origin- have been identified by the Indonesian government as being responsible for the present fires. As usual the profit of large plantation companies is at the source of this tragedy. Their fires have an unhealthy smell of money. By Raquel Núñez, WRM, E-mail: raquelnu@wrm.org.uy, based on information from: Fact sheet Nº 254, WHO, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs254/en/; “Effects of Indonesia Forest Fire”, TED Case Studies, http://www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/indofire.htm; “Forest Fires in Indonesia Blanket Malaysian Cities with Unhealthy Haze”, Associated Press, August 3, 2005, http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8412; “The trail of destruction: A chronology of the fires”, Down to Earth No. 35, http://dte.gn.apc.org/35su1.htm Casey, Michael.- Indonesia to prosecute companies over haze, 15 August 2005 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/malaysia_haze
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