By Kim Erndt-Pitcher
Biodiversity across the globe faces seemingly insurmountable threats. But here in Illinois, PRN fights to protect the best of the best, increase the amount of quality habitat for wildlife, and connect people with nature.
Together with our amazing members and volunteers, we have put our hearts and souls into protecting people and nature from harmful pesticides. Over the past five years, we have worked to inform the public about the harmful impacts of pesticides through educational videos, trainings, helping landowners tell their stories, crafting sound policy recommendations grounded in science and justice, and pushing for stronger regulations at both the federal and state levels.
Recognize the Symptoms
Symptoms of herbicide exposure can be difficult to recognize if you do not know what you are looking for. In fact, what you think is normal, may in fact be injured leaves… they have just looked that way for many years due to chronic exposure. If you do not know what symptoms of drift look like, you can see photos of normal and symptomatic leaves on our website or you can watch one of the many videos and trainings we have available on our website and youtube channel. You can join one of the training sessions or site visits we will hold this year. Become a volunteer and help us protect our wild places! Email monitoring@prairierivers.org for more information.
Our Tree and Plant Health Monitoring Program, which documents the geographic distribution, frequency, and severity of herbicide drift to trees and other broadleaf plants is entering its sixth year!
Over this time we have published reports such as Drifting Towards Disaster: How dicamba herbicides are harming cultivated and wild landscapes, our 2018 and 2019 Monitoring Report, and last year we were contracted to write the report for the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, which outlines the threats drift poses to our most valuable protected areas for biodiversity.
Charging Forward!
We are now in the process of writing a new three-year summary of our monitoring data from 2020-2022, which, sadly, highlights marked decline of oak populations in some of the areas we have documented herbicide drift for several consecutive years.
We have shared these reports, written countless comment letters, and held numerous meetings with state and federal regulators and decision-makers. Yet, there is much to do, and we are nowhere near stopping. In fact, we are charging forward!
This winter we formed the Herbicide Drift Coalition. It is a space where organizations, groups, and individuals that have been injured by drift gather, to strategize, to build power, and to create a louder, more unified voice. We will use these collective and individual voices to educate decision-makers on the threats posed by herbicide drift to the people and places of Illinois. We will put pressure on the chemical industries, regulatory agencies, and applicators to protect biodiversity and our communities from this harmful drift.
None of this, and I do mean none of this, would be possible without our smart, talented, and incredibly persistent members and volunteers. They have spent hours reading reports, sharing information, monitoring, helping edit and review reports, and have become good friends in the process. But we have much more to do. If you are interested in helping us protect our wild places, our neighborhoods, our state from the harmful impacts of pesticide drift please let us know! We would love to work with you.
