Although agrochemical products, pesticides and genetically modified crops are today part of everyday life for those who live in the countryside, they are relatively new in Argentina. Very few people, apart from enviromental activists, question their use. Yet the consequences — in both the short and the long term — of their impact on the health of those living near …
Near extinction possible for monarch butterflies
A new study (abstract below) has found that the monarch butterfly population in the US has “a substantial probability of quasi-extinction, from 11–57% over 20 years”. The study repeats the well-documented fact that a major factor in the decline of the monarch is the adoption of herbicide-tolerant GM corn and soybeans. The herbicide spraying has killed off the monarch larvae’s only food, …
JEFFREY ST. CLAIR & ALEXANDER COCKBURN – A Secret History of the Monarch: How the Biotech Industry Conspired to Knock Off One of the World’s Rarest Butterflies
On May 20 1999, Nature magazine sounded what might have been the death knell of the biotech food industry. A short paper in the respected British science magazine by John Losey, an assistant professor of entomology at Cornell University, reported the ominous results of his laboratory study on the effects of pollen from genetically modified corn on the Monarch butterfly. Losey found …
Saving the Monarch Butterfly – David Suzuki
The monarch butterfly is a wonderful creature with an amazing story. In late summer, monarchs in southern Canada and the U.S. northeast take flight, travelling over 5,000 kilometres to alpine forests in central Mexico. The overwintering butterflies cling to fir trees there in masses so dense that branches bow under their weight. The monarch’s multigenerational journey northward is every bit as remarkable as …