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   Environment   
   August 3, 2018 / 9:55 PM / Updated 9 hours ago   
   Trump administration lifts GMO crop ban for U.S. wildlife refuges   
   Laura Zuckerman   
      
   3 Min Read   
      
   (Reuters) - The Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era ban on the   
   use of pesticides linked to declining bee populations and the cultivation   
   of genetically modified crops in dozens of national wildlife refuges where   
   farming is permitted.   
      
   Environmentalists, who had sued to bring about the 2-year-old ban, said on   
   Friday that lifting the restriction poses a grave threat to pollinating   
   insects and other sensitive creatures relying on toxic-free habitats   
   afforded by wildlife refuges.   
      
   “Industrial agriculture has no place on refuges dedicated to wildlife   
   conservation and protection of some of the most vital and vulnerable   
   species,” said Jenny Keating, federal lands policy analyst for the group   
   Defenders of Wildlife.   
      
   Limited agricultural activity is authorized on some refuges by law,   
   including cooperative agreements in which farmers are permitted to grow   
   certain crops to produce more food or improve habitat for the wildlife   
   there.   
      
   The rollback, spelled out in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo, ends a   
   policy that had prohibited farmers on refuges from planting biotech crops -   
   such as soybeans and corn - engineered to resist insect pests and weed-   
   controlling herbicides.   
      
   That policy also had barred the use on wildlife refuges of neonicotinoid   
   pesticides, or neonics, in conjunction with GMO crops. Neonics are a class   
   of insecticides tied by research to declining populations of wild bees and   
   other pollinating insects around the world.   
      
   Rather than continuing to impose a blanket ban on GMO crops and neonics on   
   refuges, Fish and Wildlife Service Deputy Director Greg Sheehan said in   
   Thursday’s memo that decisions about their use would be made on a case-by-   
   case basis.   
      
   Sheehan said the move was needed to ensure adequate forage for migratory   
   birds, including ducks and geese – favored and hunted by sportsmen on many   
   of the nation’s refuges. U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose   
   department oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, has made expansion of   
   hunting on public lands a priority for his agency.   
      
   Sheehan wrote that genetically modified organisms have helped “maximize   
   production, and that neonicotinoids might be needed “to fulfill needed   
   farming practices.”   
      
   It marked the latest in a series of Obama-era environmental restrictions to   
   be reversed under Trump, his Republican successor, who campaigned on a   
   pledge to roll back government regulations.   
      
   In a 2014 Obama administration memo announcing plans to phase in the ban,   
   Jim Kurth, head of the refuge system, wrote that seeds treated with neonics   
   give rise to plants whose tissues contained compounds that could harm “non-   
   target” species. He also said, “refuges throughout the country successfully   
   meet wildlife management objectives without” GMOs or neonics.   
      
   Thursday’s memo named 50-plus national wildlife refuges across the country   
   where the revised policy now applies. The entire system consists 560 refuge   
   units encompassing roughly 150 million acres nationwide.   
      
      
      
   https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wildlife-pesticides/trump-   
   administration-lifts-gmo-crop-ban-for-u-s-wildlife-refuges-idUSKBN1KP01K   
      
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