Stinging back against local Pest Management Plans

BY MIEL CREASEY

Pesticide Free Powell River members have been working tirelessly to raise awareness around impacts of pesticides on the environment. These substances have many accumulating negative effects including depleting food sources for wildlife and people, contamination of water sources, damaging of beneficial microorganisms within the soil, loss of crucial biodiversity and a decrease of pollinators in our environment.

It is more important than ever that we take the necessary steps to ensure we are working towards preservation of healthy biodiverse ecosystems and in turn our community.

We’ve been as busy as can be with our newest t-shirt fundraiser. Our organic bamboo t-shirts are made in Canada, locally designed and printed here in Powell River BC.

With our fundraising efforts we will be working towards creating a series of short educational films and a website. T-shirts will be for sale at the Tla’amin Convenience Store or email pesticidefreepr@gmail.com to submit your order.

Our federal petition to ban the use of pesticides and their surfactants on Canadian forests has officially closed and will now be tabled in the House of Commons. Big thank-yous to everyone who signed and shared this “It is more important than ever that we take the necessary steps to ensure we are working towards preservation of healthy biodiverse ecosystems and in turn our community.” important petition which will hopefully have impact on changing this archaic legislation.

Over the last few months there has been notice of three separate Pest Management Plans (PMPs) to treat naturally regenerating areas of our local forests with pesticides, including glyphosate. We encourage community members to email our local MLA (Nicholas. Simons.MLA@leg.bc.ca), BC’s Minister of Environment (ENV.minister@gov.bc.ca and the province's Senior Pest Management Officer (Scott.Bennett@gov.bc.ca) with your concerns around pesticide use on BC forests.

Collectively we will always be stronger. For further details on these PMPs and how you can get involved do not hesitate to reach out to us at Pesticide Free Powell River on Facebook or by email pesticidefreepr@gmail.com. BEE WILD: Sofia Blaney, 11, models a fundraising t-shirt designed by her mom, Miel Creasey. The t-shirts support the work of Pesticide-Free Powell River, in eliminating glyphosate spraying in local forests.