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TH: Re: Bird-Tree-Digest: V97 #29



 Post-To: Tree-House@Majordomo.Flora.Com (Community Forestry) ----------
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 Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 12:27:13 GMT
 From: Roberta Rivett <Roberta@Islandnet.com>
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 On 14 May 1997 11:38:42 -0000, you wrote:

>>As a municipal arborist for the past 15 years I have worked very hard to
>find alternative methods of controling pests in urban trees. I have
>fought gypsy moth with bacteria and fungi and elm leaf beetles with
>wasps and bacteria etc... and in all cases have found long term
>solutions to problems the pesticide applicators and pesticide companies
>insist must be fought with chemicals.

They may be  long-term solutions and certainly are vastly preferable to the
chemical approach, but I read in Edward Tenner's "Why Things Bite Back:
Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences"  that B.
thuringiensis applications to control various larval forms are contributing
to the development of strains resistant to the bacillus.

Heavy sigh.

This seems to be a matter, for the  proprieter of a small garden, of
thinking globally and acting locally.  My neighbor's back garden is an
uninterrupted sheet of exquisite carpet-like grass.  Unfortunately his
grass is slightly elevated from my almost grassless garden, so there is
runoff.  I am now in the process of building a berm along the property line
to prevent the chemicals he applies weekly from  poisoning my land.  He is
scornful of my unorderly garden;  I despise his use of toxic substances.
We endeavour to remain on speaking terms, but our philosophies are so
greatly at variance that it is difficult. 

>How do we get pesticide application companies to behave in a responsible
>manner, and get customers to accept the less than perfect lawns and bug
>free plants?

They make their living from applying pesticides.  They believe in
pesticides, at least I will give them credit for believing, rather than
cynically disbelieving then recommending and applying them anyway. I cannot
perusade my neighbor to have a less than perfect lawn, just as he cannot
persuade me to have a perfect one.  The matter is still regarded as one of
personal preference and choice, rather than a united and informed approach
to the stewardship of the land. 

I have control over only what happens on MY property. I get on my soap-box
with some reasonably receptive people,  for chemical-free gardening, for
composting, for having bird and butterfly (and bat) -friendly  space.  But
it can be difficult to sell the idea that the larval forms of butterflies
will have made the buddleia  leaves look pretty tattered by the time the
blooms are out and the butterflies are swirling around the bush.  

Those who are in the business of applying toxins to the earth have a
philosophy that nature must be controlled, and perfected to some peculiar
standard.   They are short-sighted, of course.  But even if they
acknowledge that, they may still look askance at my garden.  

I don't have an answer to your question.  I know only that I work on the
stewardship of my small piece of land very hard indeed.

 Roberta Rivett
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