The City of Albany currently makes widespread use of Glyphosate for weed control in urban areas and along our roadsides.  We the undersigned wish to see an end to this practice.

Glyphosate is not safe for human beings.  Recent high-profile legal cases have established the links between the chemical and cancer in humans, including Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and the monetary liability for damages is colossal.  Throughout the U.S. in particular, the manufacturers of Glyphosate face skyrocketing lawsuits (over 18, 400 to date), and as awareness grows of the dangers to human health, lawsuits against organisations which knowingly use the chemical are becoming more and more likely.  Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and various U.S. cities have already banned the chemical for this reason, and because of its baleful environmental effects.

As far as our native flora and fauna are concerned, Glyphosate is a lethally poisonous pollutant.  Scientific studies have conclusively demonstrated that Glyphosate finds its way into watercourses all too easily, where it kills a wide range of micro-organisms and larger animals.  Frogs, one of the most biodiverse groups of species here in Albany, are killed outright by the surfactant used in Roundup, the commonest weedkiller containing Glyphosate, and are vulnerable at all stages of their life-cycle.  This huge range of species is often depleted by 40-70% as a result of exposure to Glyphosate.  Reed beds, a vital aquatic habitat, are destroyed by the chemical, and its use has been linked to toxic algal blooms which cause mass die-offs of fish.  Bees lose their navigation skills after being poisoned by it.  As the chemical breaks down, it forms compounds which kill earthworms and degrade the soil.  Glyphosate which gets into our oceans kills marine phytoplankton.

There are innovative and effective alternatives to the use of Glyphosate.  These include steam-weeding, and a range of organic herbicides which do not persist in the environment.  However, more preferable still are the kinds of management which do not require chemical interference of any kind: manual weeding, and best of all, re-planting with native wildflowers and other non-invasive species.  Our roadsides, which are currently barren wastelands covered with poisoned weeds, could, with a little ingenuity and careful management, become wildlife corridors in their own right.  There are local precedents for sensible management which could be expanded.  In Denmark W.A. a weed action group has worked to enrich the biodiversity of the local karri woodlands. Rather than pouring funds into spraying an expensive toxic chemical throughout the environs of our town, could the City of Albany implement a more comprehensive community weeding and native flora-planting programme to encourage people to come together around the suburbs of Albany?

In an age of mass extinction, and one in which an increasing majority of human health problems are caused not by natural pathogens but by the toxins with which we surround ourselves, an end to the local use of Glyphosate would help Albany to lead the way in finding more healthy and sustainable alternatives.  We respectfully appeal to the City of Albany to urgently end the unnecessary use of Glyphosate in our town.