Let’s take the herbicides out of the woods and put more people to work in 21st century ecological forestry and silviculture practices that conserve and restore a healthy, resilient and diverse Acadian forest!
Where Our Forest Is Being Sprayed This Summer
Check the 2022 map for spraying near you, and use our letter-writing tool to tell officials you want this unnecessary and old-fashioned practice to stop
The map showing where New Brunswick forests will be sprayed with herbicides during summer 2022 is now available.
Forestry companies spray large swaths of clearcuts with products containing glyphosate—a chemical linked to cancer and a slew of other health problems—beginning in August and continued through September.
Our team is poring over the map to help New Brunswickers identify the major spraying hotspots this summer. Stay tuned to this page for updates with maps showing hotspots across the province and within our watersheds.
In June and September 2021, the Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship held hearings on glyphosate use in New Brunswick.
Our Executive Director, Lois Corbett, was among the experts, conservation groups, scientists, and citizens groups who spoke out against spraying during the hearing and called for a better approach to forest management in New Brunswick based around ecological forestry.
“You’re going to hear from industry, ‘We can’t do things differently,’” Corbett told committee members last summer. “I don’t buy it. There are a lot of smart foresters in this province, there is a lot of talent within the industry. If they put their mind to it, they can do it. But if we don’t have legislators standing up with citizens and scientists saying we have to do this, industry will not change.”
“Like a crutch when you have a broken leg, herbicides are a symptom of a broader problem: large-scale clearcutting and an out-dated forest management strategy,” Corbett added as she called for an update to the 30-year-old Crown Lands and Forests Act.
“We have the climate change crisis. We have a crisis in nature. We have First Nations and private woodlot owners demanding fairness, and we have overwhelming public support for change. This is not the time for small goals. It’s time to do what the forests and wildlife needs, what our citizens want, and what New Brunswickers’ deserve.”
Below, learn more about the hearings, why spraying in the Crown forest should stop, and how to send your letter demanding an end to this unnecessary and old-fashioned practice.
Below, learn more about the hearings, why spraying in the Crown forest should stop, and how to send your letter demanding an end to this unnecessary and old-fashioned practice
Speak Out! Send Your #StopSpraying Letter
Your letter will be sent to your MLA, Premier Blaine Higgs, Minister Mike Holland, and all party leaders.
What's the problem with spraying herbicides containing glyphosate?
Forestry companies spray clearcut areas with herbicides to kill hardwoods and vegetation that compete with the spruce, fir and pine they grow in plantations.
The Conservation Council has long advocated that the province stop the old-fashioned, citizen-funded practice of spraying the forest. Quebec banned the spraying of its public forest more than two decades ago.
Glyphosate, the main active ingredient in most herbicides used in Crown forest operations in New Brunswick, was listed as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in 2015.
In 2016, New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer of Health’s Action Plan on Glyphosate found that New Brunswick uses more glyphosate per hectare of harvested forest than any province in Canada.
Bayer, the company that now produces glyphosate, has been ordered to pay millions in damages to cancer victims who were exposed to its products. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court refused to hear two appeals from the company trying to get out of paying.
Meanwhile, also in June 2022, a California appeals court ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to review its 2019 glyphosate re-authorization, saying the agency did not adequately consider the human health and ecological risks associated with its use.
The same thing happened here in Canada in February 2022, when the Federal Court of Appeal sent Health Canada back to the drawing board on its 2017 glyphosate renewal, and gave the department strongly-worded direction on how to conduct a proper review to avoid “the endless merry-go-round” of court applications.
Conservationists, biologists and hunters are worried that clearcutting and spraying is wiping out the food and habitats of our forest wildlife. The concern among New Brunswickers is so widespread more than 35,000 people signed a petition to end the old-fashioned practice, organized by Stop Spraying New Brunswick with support from the Conservation Council. Since 2017, more than 6,000 New Brunswickers have used our letter-writing tool to call on their MLA and the provincial government to ban the spraying our forest with herbicides.
Help us continue our work for ecological forestry in New Brunswick
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