Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project

Category: General | Date: Jul 30 2008 | By: Seamus

I’ve been broadsided by a volley of adminstrative and background work… so have had little time of late to feed the beast that is this blog’s readership. Thank you all for your patience. I’m back home now, after an exhausting few days in Nairobi. About the only good thing about the trip was the cuppaccino… from a certain coffee house. Who I think should sponsor a Lion Guardian before they can be mentioned by name on this blog (would any Nairobi coffee-shop owners reading this please stand up?).

Now, I mentioned the proposal by the EPA to ban Furadan tolerances in food in the US, in a post on the 25th. I think its interesting to read FMC’s official statement, that was released on the 25th. Almost none of the rumblings that are being heard here in Kenya (proposing to ban carbofuran) are addressing the following facts:

1. The EPA is proposing a ban on food tolerances for Carbofuran. Part of their argument is the chemical’s detrimental effect on wildlife. Part of their argument hinges around human safety.

2. The FMC corporation does not acknowledge threats to wildlife as a valid argument for de-licencing Carbofuran. Their press release says nothing about wildlife. Not even one mention. Here is a byte from the release, in response to the 60-day comment period that has been decreed.

“This does give us an opportunity to prove this product is safe from a dietary risk standpoint,” said Cummings. “It is our intent to continue to defend our U.S. registration and tolerances.”

So, in some ways Kenya’s argument against Carbofuran (and its detrimental effect on wildlife) is most likely going to be ignored. I find it particularly informative that the company has issued no official (public domain) response to the Kenya Wildlife Service and Widllifedirect’s calls for a ban. I could read all kinds of things into this behaviour, but I think fundamentally FMC does not see wildlife as a good enough reason to pull product off their shelves. Lets see what Kenyan policy-makers have to say about that. Wildlife in the US is nowhere near as economically important as agriculture, while here tourism and willdlife are both important to the kenyan economy.

Technorati : conservaiton, lions, poisoning, wildlife

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