Post by Logan on Jul 8, 2016 5:49:57 GMT -6
UM researchers find lack of government accountability on widespread herbicide use on public land
MISSOULA — Herbicides have been widely used on public lands in North America to kill non-native and invasive plants for decades. But a new report raises serious questions about whether taxpayers are footing a significant bill for a widespread but not widely known land management practice that may be causing more harm than good.
A pair of researchers at the University of Montana recently contributed to a new study that has found a lack of government data and accountability on whether this method is actually destroying “non-target” species and ecosystems and possibly allowing more destructive invasive species to take root.
UM researchers Cara Nelson and Viktoria Wagner, along with two Canadian researchers, surveyed government agencies and ag statistics companies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico and recently published their findings in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
They found that in 2010, 1.2 million acres of U.S. federal and tribal wildlands — an area the size of 930,630 football fields — was sprayed with 200 tons of herbicide. By far the most commonly used active ingredient was glyphosate — most commonly known to consumers under the brand name Roundup — which is a nonselective herbicide that also kills native grasses and herbs. Glyphosate is used in much higher concentrations on croplands, especially since the patent for the chemical expired in 2000 and its price dropped. However, because wildlands have higher biological complexity, they could be disproportionately sensitive to herbicide applications compared to crop-production ecosystems.
Read more: billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/um-researchers-find-lack-of-government-accountability-on-widespread-herbicide/article_63410599-6b7e-5665-9d20-3a3b38a0089a.html
MISSOULA — Herbicides have been widely used on public lands in North America to kill non-native and invasive plants for decades. But a new report raises serious questions about whether taxpayers are footing a significant bill for a widespread but not widely known land management practice that may be causing more harm than good.
A pair of researchers at the University of Montana recently contributed to a new study that has found a lack of government data and accountability on whether this method is actually destroying “non-target” species and ecosystems and possibly allowing more destructive invasive species to take root.
UM researchers Cara Nelson and Viktoria Wagner, along with two Canadian researchers, surveyed government agencies and ag statistics companies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico and recently published their findings in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
They found that in 2010, 1.2 million acres of U.S. federal and tribal wildlands — an area the size of 930,630 football fields — was sprayed with 200 tons of herbicide. By far the most commonly used active ingredient was glyphosate — most commonly known to consumers under the brand name Roundup — which is a nonselective herbicide that also kills native grasses and herbs. Glyphosate is used in much higher concentrations on croplands, especially since the patent for the chemical expired in 2000 and its price dropped. However, because wildlands have higher biological complexity, they could be disproportionately sensitive to herbicide applications compared to crop-production ecosystems.
Read more: billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/um-researchers-find-lack-of-government-accountability-on-widespread-herbicide/article_63410599-6b7e-5665-9d20-3a3b38a0089a.html