by frog
Georgina Downs, the UK’s longstanding pesticide campaigner, has won a landmark ruling in the High Court. The TimesOnline reports:
For years the Downs family had no idea what was ailing her. Symptoms initially included blisters inside her mouth and throat; in 1991 her legs gave way. “I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t know what was going wrong. My body completely failed me,” she tells me.
Then, one day, she happened to look out of a window and noticed that the neighbouring farmer was spraying his crops. Wondering if this might be the cause, she asked him to give her family notice before he sprayed in future, but he typically gave only 10 minutes’ warning. (Bee-keepers, the judge drily noted, get 48 hours.) In any case, the sheer number of times that he sprayed his crops ruled out much chance of getting out of the way – last year’s salad crop alone was sprayed 30 times in six months.
The judicial review found that the government had failed to protect people, particularly rural residents, from exposure to pesticides. This judgment – against the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – represents a significant breakthrough in a crusade that has already been compared with earlier campaigns to prove the health dangers of tobacco and asbestos.
Some farmers believe that the ruling may even lead to pesticides being banned – and that crop yields will fall significantly as a result (although the Soil Association says organic farming can actually produce greater yields).
Downs has now called on the government to ban spraying immediately near homes, schools and other public areas. The government is expected to appeal but for the moment she is enjoying her victory – the culmination of a campaign fought with extraordinary determination, despite appalling health problems.
The evidence is really quite clear that the government has knowingly failed to act, has continued to shift the goalposts, cherry-picked the science to suit the desired outcome and misled the public.
Georgina sounds to me like a poster child for an anti-ERMA campaign right here in New Zealand. How long do we have to continue begging the authorities to actually look at the science and make an informed assessment of the risks from agrichemicals? Congratualtions Georgina, and keep up the good fight. This kind of victory can be short lived if the review turns into yet another whitewash of the science. How long will it be before the words of Rachel Carson, who wrote Silent Spring 45 years ago, finally bear fruit in the halls of power?
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Health & Wellbeing by frog on Sun, November 23rd, 2008
Tags: court, Frog, frogblog, georgina downs, green, new zealand, nun, party, pesticide, ruling, UK
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
But who was it who campaigned to ban GE crops that require LESS spraying and so avoid the problem claimed here?
The law of cause and effect bites eh comrade?
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No, just that some solutions are as bad or worse than what they’re trying to fix.
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Actually most respected scientists (you know, the people who write things in peer reviewed papers complete with long words, or discuss their findings at scientific conferences conferences, not over drinky poos at cocktail parties) agree that round up ready soy and cotton actually increases pesticide use by encouraging blanket spraying of glyphosate.
ERMA have just approved New Zealand’s first GM organism to be released into the environment. This could have wide reaching repercussions on our GM free status, and should certainly be worthy its own thread on frog blog.
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kiore1 – Thanks for that info. I wasn’t aware that the Horse vaccine got through the process. What a bummer. So much for a totally GE Free NZ. I’ll do some home work and then get a post up. Cheers
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Don’t you just love it!!
>>The judicial review found that the government had failed to protect people, particularly rural residents, from exposure to pesticides.
>>
Now we need the UK government to ensure it protects my daughter (who lives over there) from a number of other hazards. I think a hard-hat should be enough to keep off the effluent that falls from birds that might fly over her head. A rain-coat, with transparent head-bubble would be OK to keep the acid rain off her skin. Shoes with 4″ steel toe-caps should do to ensure she doesn’t stub her toe on the pavement. Steel mesh gloves should ensure she doesn’t get cuts on the hand from knives sent flying past by upset chefs (Ramsey lives quite close). Of course, as she is a devoted horsewoman, she should be provided with extra-thick shin-pads, in case her horse happens to kick!
Sorry, if you don’t like, or want, the downside of life in the countryside, live in the city!
The most common spray in the area of Hampshire where I used to live was Nitrogen prills (brand name Nitram), though sometimes we ‘enjoyed’ having the liquid and solid effluent from the daughter’s stables spread out on her veggie patch (she refuses to eat the flesh of anything that has had a face, though the excreta of said flesh seems to be quite acceptable – bless her). We loved where we lived, and the odours and their causal particulate were just something you accepted along with the good stuff.
I hate people who move to a house close , and under the approach path, to an airport, and then start a major campaign to stop aircraft from flying when they want to sleep. Idiocy used to be dealt with by Darwinism, now it is dealt with by legal petition, socialism and regulation. Back to nature say I.
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Now all we need is a conclusive legislative win against IvanWatkinsDow’s plant at Paritutu, in Taranaki, and compensation for all the families who suffered repeated deformed, stillborn children, and subsequently infertility amongst their menfolk working with Dioxin day-in-day-out, so that NZ’ers could spray this deadly, banned chemical all over the pastoral land, right up until 1996.
Oh, and a small something for the children of farmers who sprayed this chemical aerially on their land – children who grew up to be adults with impaired or dysfuctional immunity, now reaching quantifiable levels in the Min Health and Min Soc Development statistics, as we all end up on Invalids benefits.
But not to worry – we won’t be a drain on the country for long.
Just like the workers at the Paritutu plant, we will die long, agonising deaths, and they will apologise after most of us are gone, and possibly compensate one or two survivors to make the government look good.
ERMA should think more carefully before releasing unknown organisms from laboratories – there is no long-term study on the effects of GE on human organisms, as humans have not been genetically altered, only our food crops.
This is the major flaw in the arguments.
The US corporates, such as Monsanto, have tried to present GE in the food chain as a fait accompli, and are claiming no adverse effects – but that is in an american populace already beset by poor food choices, rampant obesity problems, and the attendant problems with heart disease and diabetes – all concerns for the health system here, in areas where american food culture has taken hold, such as Auckland’s sprawl suburbs.
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Strings,
It’s one thing to move next to an airport and then complain about the noise. But to move anywhere and have poisons sprayed onto you and your family…? Surely you can see the difference.
Whether Georgina Downs moved there or not (and she seems to have been there since 1991) is irrelevant. I would have thought someone spraying a toxic chemical in a way that it drifts over the boundary would constitute a clear breach of her property rights; and we know how much more important property rights are than human rights.
This isn’t a case of the much-dreaded ‘nanny state’ interfering in business. It’s a case of preventing certain injury to others.
We could always put this to the test. What’s your address, maybe we could spray your house once a fortnight with the pesticide of our choice.
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James – once again you’re wrong. The science proves that GE crops require MORE not LESS spraying, & the law of unintended consequences show that side effects such as chemical resistant ‘weeds’ & insects evolve over a short time span. Not to mention the absurd consequence of GE free farmers being sued for ‘planting’ GE seeds that ‘accidently’ end up in their fields – great !
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/
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Tane
I would give you the address, no problem, but I live in a built-up area with about eight houses to the acre – you would end up spraying my neighbours, non of whom have chosen to live in close proximity to a farm.
Again the point is simple, unless what is being sprayed is an illegal substance the farmer is perfectly within his rights; if you don’t like it don’t live there. Finally, I am sure the area was rural and used for farming in 1991, and probably subject at that time to regular spraying; in other words, this IS a self inflicted wound.
This IS a case of the much-dreaded ‘nanny state’. To be a case of preventing certain injury to others you would have to prove that EVERYONE who was ever within wind-drift of the spray WAS injured.
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Yes Bigbluekiwiw, the 2 GE crops i know of seem to have more pesticide. One has an inbuilt ‘natural’ pesticide – the Bt toxin. The other is resisitant to round-up/glyphophate so desinged for pesticide usage.
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Strings,
I think you’re wrong, pure and simple.
If your neighbour, who had moved into his house before you, decided to start playing the drums at 11pm once a week, you’d complain.
If he started burning tyres in his backyard once a week, you’d complain.
If he started pissing on the fence, splashing your property, you’d complain.
According to your logic, he has a perfect right to do these things. Yet none of them (except maybe the tyres) is damaging to your health.
To say that anyone, not just this lady should put up with toxic chemicals, simply because “That’s the way it’s always been, so harden up” is bollocks. I’m pretty certain you wouldn’t stand for it. If you would, then good on you, I’m proud of your principle. But just because one person is happy to put up with it doesn’t mean it’s something society has to put up with.
After all, your taxes would be paying for their medical costs. That’s your money after all……
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# Strings Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
> This IS a case of the much-dreaded ‘nanny state’. To be a case of preventing certain injury to others you would have to prove that EVERYONE who was ever within wind-drift of the spray WAS injured.
just because some people are less susceptible to a certain toxin than others doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.
Only one third of Europeans in the 1340s died of the Black Death. Do you argue that the Black Death was not a problem because some people survived it?
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Tane,
you misrepresent strings’ points.
Moving next to someone whom then procedes to start an annoying habit is totaly different to moving to an area where it is ovious that the convention is, at that point in time, the usage of heavy chemicals.
in the first instance you cant have known, in the second it is a taken of moving there, it is little different than moving next to a highway and complaining of the fumes or walking infront of a crematorium and complaining of the smoke
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Classic case of poor property rights resulting in free riding and the subsequent appropriating of property rights by the pesticide nun. This comes about because the Nun moved to the countryside for the benefits of the countryside (cows, green spaces and cheap land compared to the city). Susbsequently dislikes the fact that cows are not costless and then is able to impose costs on the cow to pay for here prefered lifestyle. End result in a few years – less cows, higher food proces and if no alternative industry has moved into the area, lower property prices due to unemployment arising for a poor allocation of resources.
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Strings et al.,
I think it sounds like the problem is that nearby residents were not given proper information about the risks of the spraying (when the risks were known). I wonder if the farmer was aware of the risks? If more information was available, the nun might not have chosen to live there.
In any case, one has to wonder what the consequences of spraying these chemicals is … perhaps we would actually be better off with out them, even if crop yields decreased?
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Tane
I think you’re wrong, pure and simple – you may be virginal and you may be simple, but I’m not wrong and your examples hold no water!
If my neighbour played drums at 11pm I would have it stopped because IT’s ILLEGAL..
If he started burning tyres in his backyard I would have it stopped because IT’s ILLEGAL..
If he started pissing on the fence, splashing my property, I would photograph it and have it stopped because IT’s ILLEGAL..
You see, according to my logic, he has NO right to do these things, they are all illegal.
If the chemical being used are truly toxic, they will be banned substances and the lady in question has recourse at law. If they are not banned substances – tough! As for me standing for it, well I wouldn’t! I WOULD MOVE to a place where things I didn’t like, but which are perfectly legal, were not done.
I am, perhaps by your standards, strange. I believe in the rule of law, not the preference of one. Campaign all you like to get laws changed, I will applaud your actions, but don’t try to force me to stop doing something that is legal because YOU think it’s bad.
In Singapore I don’t chew gum. In Saudi Arabia I don’t let my wife walk around in a short sleeved top. In Mississippi I wouldn’t spit on the table in a restaurant, and in New Zealand I don’t undertake illegal protests. That’s called abiding by the law.
I believe that government should be about laws, not about people, do you understand that concept?
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kahikatea
The analogy is so weak as to be water without a tea-bag. Try one with the law on your side. Get Parliament to ban the substance by proving it is generally toxic, otherwise we would ban milk as it is dangerous TO SOMEONE!
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What would Hayek say ?
exactly what you said
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samiuela
The problem is not that nearby residents were not given proper information about the spraying, it is the responsibility of the buyer to ascertain information about the property and area they were planning to buy in to. The farmer is not required to find out the contact details of everyone who MIGHT purchase property close to theirs, and deliver to them a tutorial on the processes and practices of farming in that area!
You suggestions scream of an idealism, in which everyone takes total responsibility for others and no one has to take responsibility for themselves! For instance, who would pay to make ‘more’ information available, and indeed, is there MORE information? It strikes me there is more than enough information; people just don’t go find it.
As you have to wonder what the consequences of spraying these chemicals is, perhaps you should personally fund an exploration of the available information and see for yourself if YOU would be better off with out them. If you would, you could then calculate the extra costs you would have to pay to compensate the farmers for their yield decreased and let us all know; with references cited and assumptions documented, of course.
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Strings,
I understand your logic 100%. You place a very high value on the legality (or otherwise) of actions when deciding if something is right or wrong. Thats a fair enough point of view.
The argument you have with Tane and others arises because they believe that what is legal is not always right; in this case the spraying may be legal, but that does not make it right.
Out of interest, why do you think it is wrong to steal something? Is it because stealing is illegal? Are there situations when stealing can be justified?
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What is right in some regimes (e.g. taking an apple from a fruit vendor’s pile and eating it (to see if the taste is acceptable) is theft here and normal behaviour in Saudi Arabia.
Beating a naughty child with a piece of bamboo cane was normal in the 1950s and is illegal here.
Driving a car on a motorway at 150 Kph is legal in Germany and illegal here.
Sexual intercourse between two men is legal here and illegal in Paraguay.
Would you like any more examples? The reality is that laws are made by me and for men, and that’s OK by me. I accept the definition of legal right and wrong as constructed by the Government of New Zealand, and abide by it as long as I am here. In Germany I break New Zealand law – so what!
My point is that we have to accept the consequences of our form of government., and individuals and groups can lobby for what they think it wrong to be made illegal (I think it’s called an election in broad terms!).
So, to come back to your question of, “why do you think stealing is wrong”, I have to say that stealing is a definition not an absolute! When the last Labour-led government put up taxes on top earners to 39% there are people who claimed it was theft – I am not one of them, so you define the circumstance of ’stealing’ and I’ll tell you if I think it is right or wrong.
Sorry to give the appearance of being evasive – I just believe in the rule of law and it’s not easy!
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PS
When individuals abandon law as the arbiter of A standard of what is wrong and what is right, it is known as anarchy, which is not a condition I want to live in, though I cold hire a few big bruisers and take what I want I suppose!
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Strings
Your comments on the following please:
…”people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then Thoreau says the law deserves no respect and it should be broken.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
I accept that the issue of the nun and pesticides does not relate to “just or unjust laws” but on your PS statement of 8.48 am you seem to imply that individuals do not have the right to disobey the law at all. If not, when will individuals according to you have the right to disobey the law? And who decides if the laws are unjust if not the individual him/herself?
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We are arguing about a UK decision while we are actually living in NZ.
Most if not all District Plans quite properly have rules about the use of agricultural sprays which refer to national or industrial standards.
More importantly we have had a recent case brought under common law where a farmer recklessly sprayed a herbicide which drifted into his neighbours commercial greenhouse and wiped out a whole crop of tomatoes.
He sued for damages and was awarded over a million dollars (from memory).
He could prove the damage and the common law worked a treat. Had he used the RMA the fine would have been limited to $200,000.
Since then farmers have been more careful.
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Owen
Could you please provide a reference of some sort for the case you are refering to, I would like to read the law report of it.
I have checked the law reports on the information you have provided but could only find the old case (2006) of Hamilton vs Papakura District Council. This was decided against the plaintiff who relied on common law and who had suffered the loss of his cherry tamato crop grown in hothouses as a result of the use of water, supplied by the defendant, that had been contaminated by herbicide. The high court, court of appeal and the privy council all turned the claim down.
Thanks
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Johan
My reality is that we elect, in our free society, a parliament to govern the country, which includes us. They pass laws to do that. If I feel the law is unjust that is my opinion, if a significant number of people (10% of registered voters) feel the same way they can force a plebiscite through petition. If the law is still not changed then they can change the Government at the next scheduled election. This, to me, is what living in a land under the rule of law is about.
On this basis all theories of civil disobedience have no relevance in this my country and anyone attempting it should be dealt with by the full force of the law!
QED
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Strings,
I follow your argument, however, please note that the statement was made by Henry Thoreau in the United States and his thoughts later found their way into the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King.
Surely you will agree that your statement “… that we elect, in our free society, a parliament to govern the country, which includes us. They pass laws to do that.” applies in the USA as well?
Will you therefore say that civil disobedience had no place in the civil rights movement in the 60’s?
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Johan
Having been there in the 60s, I can tell you that the extent of civil disobedience was not to break the law. The movement used the law to ensure that the Constitution was observed – when the Supreme Court declared that Negros were people too, and so covered by the phrase “all men are created equal” they broke the back of a number of laws that were judged to be unconstitutional.
Let’s not get too caught up in tit-for-tat though. There were many people who broke many laws as the civil rights movement progressed, and there were many people who ’stole’ ‘property’ by taking slaves out of the South well before Dr. King’s initiatives took hold. However, just like Gandhi, Dr. King did NOT encourage law breaking, he encouraged use of the law to right wrongs, which I don’t count as civil disobedience.
The comment you made that I believe is totally wrong is in your statement . . . . . . . .
>you seem to imply that individuals do not have the right to disobey the law at all. If not, when will individuals according to you have the right to disobey the law? And who decides if the laws are unjust if not the individual him/herself?
>
My point is that when an individual decides that a law is not just, and take to themselves the right to disobey the law, you have anarchy – just as we are starting to see today!
There are people who think our drug laws are unjust, so they make and sell “P”. There are people who think our drink-driving laws are unjust, so they drive drunk. There are people who think our property rights laws are unjust, so they daub pain on walls and claim it as an art form. There are people who think our vehicle testing laws are unjust, and so they drive vehicles that are unsafe on our roads. There are people who think our taxation laws are unjust, and so they work for cash and never pay taxes. There are people who believe our rape laws are unjust, and so they take advantage of drunk girls. ALL OF THESE, according to your theory, as quoted above, ARE RIGHT. However, I don’t want to live in your world, so I believe in the rule of law and the enforcement of that rule.
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Johan, It was in Northland from memory.
I was hoping no one would ask because although I referred to it on a submission to the Northland Regional Council I suspect I lost it in a hard drive crash.
Give me a minute or 50.
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Still have not found that one but have found a reference to a more recent one where action was taken under RMA. Go to pps 16, 17:
http://thegrower.co.nz/magazine_pdf/2005_2006/2005July.pdf
And if you email me I shall send you my evidence on buffer zones to the NRC.
Will keep looking.
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Strings,
I agree, lets not get caught up in a tit-for -tat so lets not go there.
I accept your concern about any law not to my liking cannot merely be ignored. However, I do not subscribe to the view that because it is law it should be obeyed – in its extereme form this comes down to the old “I was only following orders” excuse. I think the crux of it is that where there are laws, you disobey them at your peril, even when you may feel they are not justified. I do not hold that because you feel they are unjust you can ignore them without consequences but that when you feel them unjust you are morally bound not to follow them AND face the consequences. Further, “unjust” something more serious than “dislike” or “don’t agree” – it has a moral imperative to it that places the individual in conflict with his or her conscience.
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Johan, I disagree with your position, but will fight to the death to allow you to hold and express it!
“One man’s JUSTice (death penalty) is anothe man’s UNJUST action” JFK/1963 speech to new graduates of Harvard Law School.
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Owen,
Thanks, found it.
FYI:
Case Name: Northland Regional Council v Skywork Helicopters Ltd & Anor
Judge(s): Judge JP Doogue
Court Name: DC, Whangarei
File Number: CRN 3027005691, CRN 3027005692, CRN 3027005693, CRN 3027005684, CRN 3027005685, CRN 3027005686
Judgment Date: Jun 24, 2005
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Strings
If you read the posting you will see that the nun actually used the law to get a judicial review. In other words if pesticides are banned it is the law would make it ILLEGAL. So by your own logic she did the right thing, and anyone spraying pesticides would be doing something ILLEGAL and would therefore be in the wrong.
Incidentally, if you were living in Nazi controlled Amsterdam, would you hide a Jewish family in your attic. I hope not. That would be ILLEGAL. In fact under your own logic the only moral thing for you to do would be to turn them in to the authorities. Not to do so would be ILLEGAL.
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Kiore,
accually the pesticides are not banned and therefore it was perfectly legal, this is mearly a case of a judical review that thought the state should change your diaper and powder you if your too stupid to use the loo and wipe your own arse.
Hey, those asians were victimising us maori! opps, i mean those jews were victimusing us germans
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Kiore,
accually the pesticides are not banned and therefore it was perfectly legal, this is mearly a case of a judical review that thought the state should change your diaper and powder you if your too stupid to use the loo and wipe your own a*se.
Hey, those asians were victimising us maori! opps, i mean those jews were victimusing us germans
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“shaking head in shame”
Have another read of this. The greens back DoC all the way, yet here you are going on and on about pesticides. Do any of you realize how much poison DoC apply to OUR country each year?
I’m unimpressed, make up your minds, ya or na. This is what makes the whole deal such a joke, “we are clean and green, we want it all”
Hey DoC, how many ton did you get out this week? I hope it wasn’t around my clean green patch….
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Sapient
Read my post again more carefully. I never said the pesticides were banned. I am saying that if they were to be banned through the influence of the review then such a ban would be illegal.
In any case I don’t have the same respect for the law as Strings. The only rules I will willingly obey are those I make myself, and then I am very law abiding.
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kiore
War is a different kettle of albatross, and so your searching for a way to belittle me has, again, failed. As for your willingness to only abide by laws you yourself decide are appropriate, I would be grateful, and so would many others I am sure, if you would hie yourself off to an island where you can govern yourself to your hearts content.
Last week we had a family of people who thought the same way you do, they were shocked that the rest of us would send them to prison for killing a little girl, using tumble dryers and washing lines along the way! After all, there was nothing wrong with it in their view – I can only believe that you agree with their right to think that way!
No more shall I read you correspondence – it is, to use use words, unjust use of my time and intelligence.
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Strings
I really don’t know why you are comparing me with killers of a little girl. I have never killed anyone, and I will never even kill animals to eat; even though the law allows me to, according to my own rules it would be wrong. If you require a law to tell you what is right and wrong, then it is you that needs to go off to an island. Presumably if there was rioting in the streets and the rule of law broke down you would then think you could do what you liked.
It is my view that the law is for rat bags. There are a significant number of them out there, so we still need laws. But decent people will behave decently even where there are no laws or threats of punishment.
I am not so closed minded as to stop reading material that I disagree with. So I will continue to read your correspondence, and to post disagreements on it if I want.
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