Title: Australian Greens call for immediate halt to helicopter herbicide spraying
[Courier-Sun 20 Jan 2014 by Alice Burnet] AUSTRALIA — The Greens NSW are calling for an immediate halt to plans by the NSW Forestry Corporation to spray by helicopter a chemical cocktail of Glyphosphate (RoundUp), Metsulfuron Methyl, Fluoroxypr Methy lheptyl, Simazine and other chemicals across Gladstone State forest in the State’s Mid-North Coast. The Gladstone State Forest is just a few kilometres from the busy township of Bellingen and lies on the banks of the Kalang River. Greens NSW Forestry Spokesperson David Shoebridge said: “I’ve spoken to local residents and environmentalists who are genuinely distressed that this chemical cocktail will be sprayed just metres from their homes and across their local forests and waterways. “It is little more than environmental vandalism by the Forestry Corporation to be spraying this powerful chemical cocktail into the catchment of the Kalang River and just a few kilometres away from Bellingen. “If it wasn’t so serious it would be comical to hear the Corporation telling residents their aerial spray will not drift into houses, rivers and feeder streams. “Locals have every right to protest and demand a halt to this spraying when they are given so little notice, and the impacts of the aerial spraying are so poorly explained. “The forest management techniques of the Corporation from clear felling, to direct drilling of select species and now the chemical bombing of unwanted species, is all designed to do one thing, to convert diverse native forests into single species plantations, “The Greens are calling for an immediate halt to the Corporation’s aerial spraying programme and an end to the industrial logging of all state forests in the Mid-North Coast,” Mr Shoebridge said. ${imageDescription} Comment
