Trump Quietly OK’s Bioengineered Farming on Wildlife Refuges

When you think about America’s wildlife refuges, a lush rolling mountain range or untrammeled wetland preserve might come to mind—not a field clouded with industrial weedkillers. There’s a good reason for that: A few years ago, the Obama administration barred two controversial forms of biotechnology on designated wildlife preserves, neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically modified crops, to help the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) better uphold its public mandate of conservation and wildlife protection. But the Trump administration is seeking to make the country’s wilderness safe for agrichemicals again.

Caribou graze on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In a terse memorandum, seemingly unprompted, the FWS quietly rescinded a hard-won Obama-era legal agreement, which imposed a blanket ban on the pesticides and genetically modified crops on the agricultural lands currently hosted in national wildlife refuges. The Obama-era measure was implemented after a campaign by public employees, scientists, and environmental groups, based on the principle that, for the minuscule amount of commercial farming that intersects with refuge land, curbing the human footprint on these preserves will help wildlife flourish.

Read The Nation story by Michelle Chen - “Trump Quietly OK’s Bioengineered Farming on Wildlife Refuges.”