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First Words

Five-year old Tatiana represents the hope that launched Pesticide Action Network almost 25 years ago—she’s part of the new generation of children being raised with organic foods and fair trade values. Her mother, PAN Senior Scientist Dr. Margaret Reeves, works on these issues so that Tati and all children will have a healthier and more just world. Five-year old Tatiana represents the hope that launched Pesticide Action Network almost 25 years ago—she’s part of the new generation of children being raised with organic foods and fair trade values. Her mother, PAN Senior Scientist Dr. Margaret Reeves, works on these issues so that Tati and all children will have a healthier and more just world. Credit: Stephenie Hendricks

Dear Readers,

We are proud to introduce the PAN North America magazine! It replaces both our longtime Global Pesticide Campaigner journal and our journal and our Partners Newsletter.

For several years we’ve been moving toward more online-based publications to mobilize our members and organizational affiliates for high-impact campaigns. This new magazine supports this strategy. The online version provides more extensive coverage and action opportunities than possible with the print series, plus audio and video clips. The print version includes a pull-out action guide to engage your friends, neighbors,and local schools in our campaigns.

We want to thank everyone associated with the Global Pesticide Campaigner - all you writers, editors, designers, photographers and readers who’ve made suggestions for over sixteen years - for your part in making so much information available to so many. We need and want your continued partnership in this mission, and would love to get your response to this new approach! For example, we’d like your help in naming this new magazine. Please submit your suggestions by postal mail, email, or online! If we select your title, we’ll send you Michael Abelman’s beautiful new book in appreciation of your generous creativity.

Most importantly, this magazine is aimed at chronicling progress toward pesticide reform and just, sustainable food systems, particularly in North America. It reflects the work that you and all of us in the network are doing to end the use of dangerous pesticides, create successful alternatives, expose corporate attacks on environmental health, and promote a just transition for workers, growers, and consumers to a healthier world.

Thanks for your support in this wonderful work! All our best, and we hope to hear from you,

Monica Moore
Co-Director

In this Issue

Honoring Courage Speaking Truth to Power: Jorge Fernández. A farm worker in Salinas, California, speaks out about the health impacts of fumigants after years of working with methyl bromide, a known neurotoxin. We spoke with him outside the Los Padres elementary school in Salinas, in a region where elevated concentrations of methyl bromide in the air have been found in schools.* Throughout the interview, he gasped for breath while speaking.

News - Bad Bills Push U.S. POPs Treaty Ratification
- Lindane: A Case Study in Corporate Influence
- Innovative Global Chemical Management Agreement Signed
- Activists Defend Quebec's Ban on 2,4-D
- Internatonal Agricultural Assessment Gains Steam
- Ozone Outlaw
- Time to Phase Out Fumigants!

Government Watch Why the Chemical Industry Wants to Test Pesticides.The EPA might just as well have set up a lightning rod in their Washington, D.C., headquarters when they proposed a new rule regulating the testing of pesticides on people last fall.

Fumigants Must Go! A pull out action guide. Fumigants poison rural communities, farm workers, and the environment. Fumigants are too toxic to be used safely, We have new, safer ways to grow food without chemicals. Help phase out fumigants! Action Guide Inside!

In Depth: Your House Has Termintes, Now What? So the pest-control service found termites and recommended that the building you live in be fumigated with Vikane. You ask yourself, is Vikane safe? Are there alternatives?

In Depth: Global Acute Pesticide Poisioning Unlike many diseases, pesticide poisoning is completely preventable. People can make decisions either to release hazardous pesticides into the environment, or to replace them with least toxic alternatives.

North American Affiliates A Vibrant Network. In a world of increasing convergence among international social movements, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) has been leading the way in building global ollaborations to protect health and the environment.

The Last Word... A process of belonging. Excerpted from Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It by by Michael Ableman from Chronicle Books. The author and longtime friend of PAN lives and farms on an island off the coast of British Columbia.