GMOs Banned from Delaware Wildlife Refuge
The US Fish & Wildlife Service has been told by a Federal Court that it must stop planting genetically modified crops at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge on the west shore of the Delaware Bay. There are more than eighty other national wildlife refuges growing genetically modified crops and this landmark ruling may be used to prevent them continuing the research plantings.
Bush appointee overruled refuge manager
The case was brought by a consortium of organisations: the Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety and claimed that the Fish & Wildlife Service had entered into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties illegally, meaning that the hundreds of acres that had been ploughed and planted had not had the necessary environmental review before change of use and that the Service had abrogated its stated policy which prohibits planting of genetically modified or genetically engineered crops. The consortium filed the suit when it emerged, in 2006, that a Bush administration appointee had reversed the decision of the Refuge Manager, insisting that the genetically modified crops should be allowed. During the period since then, the Fish & Wildlife Service has actually altered the policy wording to allow greater planting of genetically engineered crops on any of its refuges.
Seed company funding supports refuge infrastructure
An assertion in the suit was that ‘Genetically modified crops serve no legitimate refuge purpose and have no business being grown there’ and highlights a greater debate being fought out every year between refuge managers and seed companies.
While farming within wildlife refuges can often damage the protection of wildlife and the native plant species that the refuge system was established to protect, funding for refuges is limited and finding enough money to pay for the salaries necessary to protect and conserve fragile habitats or rare species can be a headache. Seed companies can pay very well for the right to farm crops on refuge land, and their money helps pay for vehicles, salaries and equipment.
In the Delaware case, the judge decided that ‘… it is undisputed that farming with genetically modified crops at Prime Hook poses significant environmental risks.’ This means that no more agriculture of any kind can be undertaken on the refuge until the proposed farming has been checked for compatibility with the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act and environmental assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act have been carried out.
Delaware Bay courtesy of Ewan Traveler at Flickr under a creative commons licence
[...] on an issue that largely divides Europe from America and the rest of the world. In much of Europe, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are not used in food production and are not grown as crops. In pretty well the rest of the [...]