leading lines

Ontario's new anti-pesticide law (or pro-natural environment law) is causing a great deal of concern for people who pride themselves on green lawns made up of a single species (monoculture) maintained by applying chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and of course extensive watering and cutting, leaf-blowing, bagging the leaves for the waste collectors, etc.

This fear is being fueled in part, I would argue, by media stories like the ones I am seeing in our city's daily newspaper.

Let's play with today's article, titled "Growing tolerant: The key to living with new pesticide ban is accepting an imperfect lawn or garden"

TheSpec.com - Local - Growing tolerant

The article begins with the following:

"Forget perfect lawns and flawless flowers, Belinda Gallagher tells home gardeners faced with a new Ontario law prohibiting the sale and use of most chemicals that kill fungus, weeds and insects.

Gallagher, head of horticulture at the Royal Botanical Gardens, says the Cosmetic Pesticide Ban Act going into effect today means big changes for homeowners and the RBG, which is not exempt."

The next several paragraphs talk about the expected trouble, and includes staements like:

"We're in a transition phase. It's going to be a tough year for all of us," Gallagher said.

She advised audience members to go to nurseries and garden centres after today to see what's still on sale, then try to adjust."

After all the foreboding (and advise to stockpile), the last two sentences of the piece have an entirely different emphasis:

"The Hamilton Conservation Authority stopped using the weed killer 2,4-D and other pesticides almost 20 years ago without ill effects, said the authority's Bruce Mackenzie.

"We've certainly improved our environment in terms of diversity of plants and received only accolades from customers and visitors."

Wow! An agency in charge of natural lands has 20 years of experience going pesticide free, and no ill-effects. Why not begin the article with this kind of positive statement, and include more emphasis on the benefits of complex habitats with a diversity of native plants? With the new law in effect, people need help to make the shift away from the false ideal a green lawn represents: the experience of the Conservation Authority supports such a shift, a return to natural habitats that have been replaced by sodded lawns (the "Meadowlands" subdivision, for example), yet this article fails to be helpful, given its slant.

[Full article found here]