Should We Be Spraying Glyphosate On Our Forests?

The article below by Environment North board member Bruce Hyer was originally published in the Chronicle Joural on July 29, 2019.

For links to more information scroll to the end of the article below.

The forest industry has been aerial spraying the herbicide glyphosate for decades. Glyphosate is a somewhat selective herbicide that kills many broadleaved plants while having less effect on evergreens. The rationale is that after spruces and jack pines are cut, hardwoods like poplar and birch compete with young conifers for sunlight and nutrients.
There are concerns with glyphosate. Environment North proposes that forestry companies seek alternatives to aerial spraying of glyphosate on Crown lands in northern Ontario. About 50,000 hectares were sprayed in Ontario in 2015 and in 2016.
The concerns with glyphosate fall into three areas: effects on non-human species, humans and economics.
Non-human effects include wildlife (including moose) that are declining along with loss of biodiversity and critical habitats.
Effects on humans include cultural, health and economics. Indigenous people and other harvesters of wild fruits, including blueberries, are concerned about the loss of food and commerce. A recent scientific study in BC found glyphosate in new shoots and berries of plants that survived an aerial herbicide application one year prior.
Human health risks from glyphosate continue to be hotly debated. There may be a variety of unintended effects… unexpected, hidden, wonderful, nasty, or deadly. They are all effects.
A “safe” pesticide could be a formulation that if used according to directions would meet the following criteria:
· Not likely to cause death or acute toxicity, and
· Not toxic due to chronic exposure.
A widely used (but incredibly simplistic) means of assessing acute toxicity is to find the “LD50” (the lowest dose that kills 50% of the test population of animals). LD50 charts tell you nothing about non-lethal acute effects or the effects of chronic low doses, which can be far more serious than acute toxicity.
There are four classes of chronic effects to humans or other animals that should be of particular concern to us all:
a) Developmental (or teratogenic, such as birth defects or fetal death)
b) Reproductive
c) Genetic (mutations, DNA damage)
d) Carcinogenesis (cancer-producing, can sometimes require up to one quarter of a lifetime.)
A common myth: “If you eat enough of anything, it will give you cancer…” A substance either is a cancer initiator, or promoter (or both) or not. Some carcinogens have no dose without risk and others may have a low dose threshold below which there might be no risk.
After decades of use, glyphosate is too cheap and familiar to receive adequate regulation. In 2017, glyphosate was approved for continued use by Health Canada despite strong opposition by many groups (including the Canadian Physicians for the Environment) due to probable cancer and wildlife effects.
A variety of published scientific reports show that glyphosate is toxic in many ways. Some are worrisome. An epidemiological study of Ontario farmers showed that glyphosate exposure increased risk of late spontaneous abortions and premature births. Some recent analyses reviewing a number of studies suggest an association between glyphosate use and the risk of a cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2018, Monsanto was forced to pay $289 million in damages in just one lawsuit… and there are hundreds, potentially thousands, of other lawsuits pending. Monsanto has allegedly manipulated scientific evidence thereby downplaying the health risks of their glyphosate-based products.
Lastly, there are economic issues. One alternative to aerial spraying is manual thinning of hardwood competition by forest workers thus creating employment.
Quebec banned herbicide use on crown land in 2001. British Columbia has reduced glyphosate use from 16,000 to 10,000 hectares in recent years and is considering a number of forestry practices to use less glyphosate and create more diverse and resilient forests, better able to withstand pests, fires and climate change.
Dozens of foresters and economists have been asked repeatedly over the years “What forest species will produce the forest products of the future in 60-100 years?” Nobody knows! We may just be killing the species and forestry jobs of our grandchildren’s future. Bruce Hyer is a board member of Environment North and has a history in pesticide regulation and policy.

Glyphosate and Forestry
Nov 2018: Time to stop spraying - 5 minute video (or the text) of Member of BC parliament Andrew Weaver http://www.andrewweavermla.ca/2018/11/07/time-stopping-spraying-glyphosate-bc-forests/

January 2019: The herbicide glyphosate persists in wild, edible plants.  Article in Vancouver Sun https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-herbicide-glyphosate-persists-in-wild-edible-plants-b-c-study  and the click here for the journal article

http://forestinfo.ca/faqs/how-much-glyphosate-is-sprayed-every-year-in-forestry/  More info and link to a database.  "..a provincial restriction on herbicide use in Crown forests was invoked in the province of Quebec in 2001..."  

JUNE 2017, Review of available scietific evidence by NEW ZEALAND, CANADIAN AND SOUTH AFRICAN natural resource managers concluded "...that glyphosate-based herbicides, as typically employed in planted forest management, do not pose a significant risk to humans and the terrestrial and aquatic environments.”
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/8/6/208/pdf

 

Glyphosate and human health

2016 article: Click here for an article on the "Concerns over use of glyphosate-based herbicides and risks associated with exposures: a consensus statement." 

Analyses from the Ontario Farm Family Health Study:

1. Click here for the risk of spontaneous abortion in an Ontario farm population

2. Click here for Male_Pesticide_Exposure_and_Pregnancy_Outcome

Click here for a summary from the detoxproject.org on glyphosate/birth-defects-and-reproductive-and-developmental-problems/

 

Canadian News and Reviews

January 2019:  CBC news: “Health Canada scientists say there is no reason to believe the scientific evidence they used to approve the continued use of glyphosate in weed killers was tainted.” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/health-canada-herbicide-glyphosate-roundup-1.4975945

Health Canada Review of Glyphosate:http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/sc-hc/H113-28/H113-28-2017-1-eng.pdf

Ontario Nature, CELA, Ecojustice and others’ concerns regarding the Health Canada Review
 https://www.cela.ca/publications/proposed-re-evaluation-decision-prvd2015-01-glyphosate

November 2018 “Monsanto papers” suggest some studies Canada used to okay glyphosate use were biased.https://environmentaldefence.ca/2018/11/12/tainted-science-used-justify-continued-use-pesticide-linked-cancer/

 

International News and Reviews: 

March 2019: https://sustainablepulse.com/2019/03/07/european-court-of-justice-orders-eu-regulators-to-publicly-release-secret-industry-glyphosate-studies/

Click here for August 2016 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC): Monograph on glyphosate (92 pages).  See page 78 for the following:
 "There is strong evidence that exposure to glyphosate or glyphosate-based formulations is genotoxic based on studies in humans in vitro and studies in experimental animals."
 "There is strong evidence that glyphosate, glyphosate-based formulations, and aminomethylphosphonic acid can act to induce oxidative stress based on studies in experimental animals, and in studies in humans in vitro." 

Click here for the 2015 European Food Safety Agency conclusion "... that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential."  (Note: there is an explanation on page 11 regarding some of the differences in conclusion between the Internation Agency for Research on Cancer and the European Food Safety Agency.)