Local Pesticide Restrictions Critical to Health, Biodiversity, and Climate

(Beyond Pesticides, August 29, 2022) Does your community have a pesticide-free park managed with organic practices? Do you wish it did? If you do have an organic parks policy, do you have updated information on current practices? The time to take action to affirm or protect our authority to shift land management in our community to organic practices—just as the pesticide industry is lobbying to take that right away from us. Become a Parks Advocate. And, take the action below.

Advance organic land management in your community and ask your Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager to affirm or protect your community’s right to restrict toxic pesticides.

If your community is one of a growing number across the country that has taken action to protect its citizens and environment by adopting organic policies and practices in its public spaces, please take this opportunity to request an update on how organic land management is going or ask that the community begin transitioning to organic land management.

At the same time, be aware that the pesticide industry is seeking take away the ability of local communities to restrict toxic pesticides. Ask your Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators, on your behalf, and tell them to oppose H.R. 7266 and support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides.

Please share with us pictures of your parks. Tell us why your pesticide-free parks are important to you.

If your community has not yet taken action to protect its residents and environment by adopting organic policies and practices in its public spaces.

Advance organic land management in your community and ask your Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager to affirm or protect your community’s right to restrict toxic pesticides.

Letter to Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager:

This letter contains a two-part request—first to address organic management in our community and, second, contact our elected representatives in Congress to protect our community’s right to restrict toxic pesticides.

I would like to make sure that all land (parks, playgrounds, playing fields, etc.) in our area is managed with organic practices that eliminate fossil fuel-based toxic pesticides and fertilizers. Where these practices are in place, I would appreciate a report to the community. Where organic practices are not being utilized, I request that a plan be put in place to transition—as part of a community effort to protect health and biodiversity, and to fight the climate crisis. Now is the time that we must all join together to do our part to curtail petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers and sequester atmospheric carbon in the soil through effective organic practices.

I am also asking you to contact, on behalf of our community, our U.S. Representative and Senators to  tell them to oppose H.R. 7266 and support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides. We need your voice to be heard on behalf of all residents of our community to protect our health and biodiversity, and fight the climate crisis. Transitioning away from fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers through the restriction of toxic pesticides and the adoption of organic practices is critically important to our health now and future sustainability.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.