Il semblerait qu'aux États-Unis, les refuges fauniques aient pris l'habitude de louer une partie de leurs terres aux agriculteurs pour qu'ils puissent y faire pousser des récoltes tout en laissant des restants à la faune. Sauf que maintenant, avec les nouvelles méthodes méchanisées et les semences génétiquement modifiées, ce n'est plus certain que ce soit une bonne idée!
Des groupes d'environnementalistes et de promoteurs de nourriture saine traînent en cour fédérale un refuge faunique du Delaware. C'est un procès type, puisque il y a au moins 80 refuges aux États-Unis qui continuent cette pratique. Les opposants suggèrent que les récoltes GM encouragent l'épandage d'herbicides et les plantes-insecticides mettent en danger la vie sauvage et tuent les insectes bénifiques autant que les mauvais. Ils avancent que ces récoltes de maïs-grain et de soya modifient l'écologie du sol et contaminent les plantes indigènes non-modifiées génétiquement. On prétend aussi que certaines plantes sauvages ont intégré la propriété d'être "Round-Up Ready". Les agriculteurs plaident qu'il est maintenant trop difficile d'obtenir des semences non-génétiquement modifiées à cultiver.
Les agriculteurs qui avaient originalement vendu une partie de leurs terres et qui continuent de cultiver les parties du refuge de la même façon que des terres agricoles ne contribuent pas ni financièrement ni environnementalement au bien-être des espèces sauvages que les refuges sont censés protéger. Les méthodes modernes de récolter ne laissent aucune nourriture pour la sauvagine et les fermiers ne laissent pas une partie de leur culture sur pied non plus.
Autrement dit, les refuges fauniques non seulement ont perdu une source de nourriture additionnelle pour les espèces sauvages, mais doivent en plus tolérer les récoltes GM et l'épandage de pesticides, exposant les écosystèmes à être contaminés et pollués!
La mauvaise habitude de permettre l'agriculture dans les parcs n'est pas unique aux USA. J'ai découvert que le Parc des Iles de Boucherville est aussi aux prises avec des surfaces cultivées au maïs GM, et qu'on se réveille là aussi: http://monteregieweb.com/main+fr+01_300+Le_mas_des_iles_de_Boucherville_voue_a_la_disparition.html?ArticleID=633522
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"Suit seeks to halt engineered crops at refuge
A federal lawsuit filed yesterday seeks to stop the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware from allowing farmers to plant genetically engineered crops at the major waterfowl sanctuary. The groups that filed the suit contend that the use of such crops on refuges is a national problem. As many as 80 others, including the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, also have allowed genetically-engineered crops, they said. The groups, which include Delaware Audubon Society and the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, said the crops can harm wildlife, in part by killing beneficial insects.
The crops also foster the use of herbicides, which may be toxic to amphibians and other wildlife and hasten the development of herbicide-resistant "superweeds," the groups said.Although widely used in commercial agriculture, the use of genetically engineered crops in refuges "goes against the purpose for which the refuges were created," said Christine Erickson, a lawyer for a third plaintiff in the suit, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a national alliance of public-resource professionals. The groups said planting the crops violates the service's own policies, which forbid them in refuges without a determination that they are essential.
Bombay Hook is a 16,000-acre expanse of mostly tidal marshes that provide valuable habitat to many species of waterfowl. It also attracts bird-watchers from throughout the mid-Atlantic and beyond. Its importance "has increased greatly over the years, primarily due to the loss of extensive surrounding marshland to urban and industrial development," the refuge's Web site says. The suit contends that for several decades, the refuge has leased acres on the property to farmers. In 2009, slightly more than 800 acres were leased, and genetically-modified corn and soybeans were planted. The crops also can alter soil ecology and contaminate non-genetically-engineered plants, the suit said.
In Delaware, a weed known as "mares tail" has developed resistance from the use of Roundup Ready on soybeans and corn, the suit contends. It noted that the federal agency itself has identified the potential risks of genetically engineered crops to include "gene flow, nontarget effects, pest resistance, and increased use of certain pesticides."
The groups picked the Bombay Hook refuge for their action because in 2009, they won a similar suit against the nearby Prime Hook refuge, now administratively incorporated into Bombay Hook. In that case, federal Judge Gregory Sleet found that the agency allowed the crops in spite of "their own biologists' findings that these activities posed several significant risks to Prime Hook." He said it was "undisputed that farming with genetically modified crops at Prime Hook poses significant environmental risks."
In August, several groups wrote to Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, asking for a moratorium on the practice, but said they did not receive an answer. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware by the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic. Paige Tomaselli, an attorney for the Center for Food Safety, said farmers have complained that, because of consolidation of the seed industry, it has harder to find seed that has not been genetically modified. Basically, four companies own more than 40 percent of the seeds in the world, Tomaselli said. She said that the crops all but guarantee the use of herbicides, to which wildlife is then exposed.
Mark Martell, president of the Delaware Audubon Society, said farming no longer serves any purpose on the refuge. Planting crops on refuges, he said, stems from a fear that there might not be enough food sources for wildlife there. Current studies show there are ample food resources for wildlife in the Delaware refuges, yet "cozy relationships" between the farmers that sold land to form the refuge and the refuge itself have continued, he said. Because of modern "clean" farming techniques, "they don't leave food plots for wildlife," Martell said. "They simply treat these government lands as part of their farms, managing these plots for personal profit, not for providing any economic or wildlife value to the species that use the refuge."
Excerpts from article written by Sandy Bauers published in The Philadelphia Inquirer here: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20100302_Suit_seeks_to_halt_engineered_crops_at_refuge.html
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