11
May
Now Available: Videos to Promote Healthy Communities
(Beyond Pesticides, May 11, 2016) Beyond Pesticides is pleased to announce that videos are now available from Cultivating Community and Environmental Health: Models for sustainable and organic strategies to protect ecosystems, pollinators and waterways, the 34th National Pesticide Forum! 
The videos cover the range of topics that were discussed at the Forum and include keynote speeches, panel discussions, and workshops. This year’s forum focused on the adoption of policies to protect human health and the environment, and organic land and building management strategies. Beyond Pesticides encourages activists, community leaders, scientists, and policy makers to attend its annual National Pesticide Forum in person to get together, share information, and strategize create communities that are healthy and free of toxic pesticides. For those who are unable to attend in person, these videos expand the incredible knowledge of the experts to the broader public to help inspire and inform community action.
Watch the videos here. You can access the playlist, which includes all of the available videos of the 2016 forum, as well as previous years, on Beyond Pesticides’ YouTube page.
Notable presentations include:
Pollinators, Biodiversity and Scientific Integrity, by Jonathan Lundgren, Ph.D. Dr. Lundgren is an agroecologist, director of ECDYSIS Foundation, and CEO for Blue Dasher Farm. Formerly a top U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) entomologist, he received a prestigious national award for civic courage (Entomologist in the Crosshairs of Science and Corporate Politics) for his work on neonicotinoids and pollinator decline in the face of agency attempts to suppress his work. One of his priorities is to make science applicable to end-users, and he regularly interacts with the public and farmers regarding pest management and insect biology.
Landmark Law: The case for local action, by Montgomery County, MD Councilmember George Leventhal. As Council President, Mr. Leventhal was the lead sponsor of the landmark ordinance, Bill 52-14, that protects children, pets, wildlife, and the wider environment from the hazards of unnecessary lawn and landscape pesticide. He wrote and championed the legislation, which restricts cosmetic pesticide use on lawns throughout the county —which is now the largest jurisdiction in the U.S. to do so on both private and public property.
Organic Practices and Policy: A view from Congress, U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree was elected to represent Maine’s 1st district in the United States House of Representatives in 2008. As Maine Magazine wrote, “Pingree can work hard. Give her any job””chopping wood, planting a garden, canning vegetables, raising children, rewriting the U.S. Farm Bill””and she’s your woman.”
Pesticides and Diseases: What Do We Know and What Do We Need? by Aaron Blair, Ph.D. a National Cancer Institute researcher (emeritus), author of more than 450 publications on occupational and environmental causes of cancer, and the overall chair of the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) evaluation panel that found glyphosate (Roundup) to be a carcinogen.
Organic Integrity: Soil, seeds and government responsibility, by Jim Gerritsen. an organic farmer who has owned and operated Wood Prairie Farm in northern Maine for 38 years, and president of the national farmer-run membership trade organization, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA), which served as lead plaintiff in the landmark organic community federal lawsuit, OSGATA et al. v. Monsanto.
The Soil Will Save Us, by Kristin Ohlson, journalist and bestselling author. Her book, The Soil Will Save Us, makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for “our great green hope”””a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon””and potentially reverse global warming.
Ecological Tick Management Workshop, featuring Ron Circe, an ecologist and manager of the over 700 acre Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve in Loudoun County, VA, where he employs natural practices to successfully manage ticks; and Daniel Sonenshine, Ph.D., professor emeritus and eminent scholar of biological sciences at Old Dominion University, who researches tick pheromones, tick immunity and tick-borne diseases.
Also included are several other presentations and workshops, including Organizing for Local Policy Change, Organic Standards, Seeds and Supplies, Biodiversity, Ecology and Soil Health, Protecting Maine Water, and more. Be sure to visit the full playlist to see the rest of the videos.
The Forum provides the opportunity for grassroots advocates, scientists, and policy makers to share efforts in building local, state and national strategies for strength and growth with its broad range of speakers and collaborators. Beyond Pesticides believes that sharing this information beyond the Forum as an educational and organizing tool will prove extremely valuable, and encourages folks to share presentations with friends, community organizations, networks, and state and local decision makers.
Beyond Pesticides thanks everyone who helped make the 34th National Pesticide Forum a success! The Forum, held April 15-16 at the University of Southern Maine, and was convened by Beyond Pesticides, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Toxics Action Center, and the USM Department of Environmental Science and Policy, and co-sponsored by a diverse range of local groups. For more details about the conference, download the program here, or see www.beyondpesticides.org/forum.
The playlist, which includes all of the available videos of the 2015 Forum, as well as previous conferences are available on Beyond Pesticides’ YouTube page.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
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August 27th, 2016 at 4:19 am