Tracy Glynn spoke with Global News New Brunswick for an evening news feature that ran on Thursday, June 29.
The Conservation Council’s Forest Conservation Coordinator said it’s time to stop using herbicides in the Crown forest.
“We know that Health Canada is currently doing a review in light of the new studies and in light of the World Health Organization’s classification of glyphosate as a possible carcinogen, so I think the prudent move is to take glyphosates out of the woods,” Glynn said.
In July, California will add glyphosate — the active ingredient in the popular herbicide Roundup (and its forest cousin Vision) — to its list of chemicals linked to cancer, and will require products that contain the compound to carry a warning label about its carcinogenic effects.
Monsanto, the chemical giant which produces Roundup, had appealed classifying glyphosate as a cancer-causing chemical, but California courts squashed the company’s appeal this week.
The Conservation Council has long called for the phase-out of herbicides on N.B.’s Crown forest. Québec banned herbicide use in its forests in 2001 due to public concern over the human health impacts of spraying and an Environmental Impact Assessment of the practice.
For more coverage and resources, see:
It’s time for 21st Century forestry practices in N.B.: Glynn. (June 29, 2017)
NB and Maine announce new study on the effect of forestry management on deer population (Feb 8, 2017)
NB uses more glyphosate in forestry than anywhere else in Canada (August 2, 2016)
CCNB statement in response to report released by the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health on glyphosate (July 29, 2016)
New Brunswick’s largest ever petition calls for ban of glyphosates in the forest (Dec 7, 2016)