______________

For comments and suggestions:

Email us at feedback@insidemindanao.com

or send us a message thru our MESSAGE TO THE EDITOR portion on our homepage

First Posted on Inside Mindanao (www.insidemindanao.com) on August 22, 2009

DENR Suspends Aerial Spraying, Groups Roar "Not Enough"

The National Task Force Against Aerial Spraying ( NTFAAS) claims partial victory as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) orders the temporary suspension of aerial spraying of pesticides in banana plantations.

Environment Secretary Lito Atienza directed Environmental Management Bureau Director (EMB) Julian Amador "to coordinate with the industry to ensure temporary suspension of aerial spraying close to residential communities or, if not possible, provide adequate buffer zones to prevent drift of fungicides⁄pesticides."

Director Amador in a memorandum sent last 17 August instructed all EMB regional directors to submit report of compliance on or before 4 September 2009.

"We thank Secretary Atienza for recognizing the justness of the farmers’ plea for health and justice as they themselves told him, but we could not hide our disappointment because his directive fell short of truly protecting the public health and the environment," said Jane Lynn Capacio of the agrarian reform and rural development group KAISAHAN, a member of NTFAAS.

Four farmers belonging to the Mindanao–based Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying (MAAS), along with several leaders of NTFAAS, spoke with Sec. Atienza last 3 August urging the DENR to apply the precautionary principle and impose an outright ban on aerial spraying.

"While we consider the temporary suspension of aerial spraying as partial success stemming from the farmers’ persistence, we find it not enough and ineffective in solving the documented menace of this hardly regulated practice of exterminating crop pests," Capacio added.

"Bakit pansamantalang pagpapatigil lang, Mr. Secretary? Alam na natin ngayon ang masamang epekto ng aerial spraying sa kalusugan at kalikasan, ano pa ba ang hinihintay natin? (Why only a temporary suspension, Mr. Secretary? We now know the adverse effects of aerial spraying to health and nature, what else are we waiting for?)" Cecilia Moran, President of MAAS, asked.

For MAAS and NTFAAS, the DENR could have been misinformed when it promulgated a temporary suspension order on aerial spraying as the government has very limited capacity to implement health and environmental monitoring of the aerially dispersed chemicals.

The groups also trashed the efficacy of buffer zones in preventing pesticide drift in the air, water and soil, stressing that chemicals applied through aerial spraying are prone to drift and can lead to off–target contamination of families and communities.

"The DENR should immediately reassess the soundness of temporary suspension and instead impose a total ban on aerial spraying nationwide if it really means to uphold environmental protection, public health and human rights against any commercial logic, whether founded or not," said Rene Pineda, Coordinator of NTFAAS.

END