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Congress Bans Plastic Microbeads, Bill Heads to President Obama's Desk
On Friday, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill phasing out the manufacture of beauty products with plastic microbeads by July 1, 2017, and the sale of such products by July 1, 2018. The Microbead Free Waters Act (H.R. 1321) bans all plastic microbeads in beauty products, including those made from so-called “biodegradable plastics,” the majority of which do not biodegrade in marine environments.
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill phasing out the manufacture of beauty products with plastic microbeads by July 1, 2017, and the sale of such products by July 1, 2018. The bill now heads to President Obama's desk. Photo credit: Alliance for the Great Lakes
“Our oceans have been choking on these tiny plastic microbeads for way too long," Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said. "This is a huge and important step toward protecting fish, birds and other ocean wildlife hurt by plastic pollution. I applaud the Senate for following California’s lead and voting to eliminate this pointless and harmful source of plastic pollution.”
The Microbead Free Waters Act, introduced by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.), will prevent 1.4 trillion plastic microbeads from entering U.S. waterways each year. Plastic microbeads—designed to be washed down the drain and too small to be reliably captured by wastewater treatment facilities—pollute lakes, rivers and oceans.
Once in the environment, plastic microbeads concentrate toxins such as pesticides and flame retardants on their surface, which may then transfer to the tissue of fish that mistake microbeads for food. A recent study found that one quarter of fish found at California fish markets had ingested plastic. One tube of exfoliating facewash can contain more than 350,000 microbeads.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 1321 earlier this month. The bill now heads to President Obama's desk for his approval.
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Only the paper part of a drink carton would be recycled — everything else, including the plastic coating or layer or aluminum foil, would be incinerated as residual waste. tavan amonratanasareegul / Getty Images
By Jeannette Cwienk
When it comes to recycling and recyclability, very little, it seems is straightforward — even something as seemingly simple as orange juice can present a conundrum. In Germany, many smaller shops sell drinks in cartons or plastic bottles, both of which will end up in the yellow recycling bin. But how do their recycling credentials stack up?
<p>"As far as recyclability is concerned, the plastic bottle is probably slightly better because it is likely only made from one plastic, and so is easier to recycle than a multilayer material like a beverage carton," says Rolf Buschmann, waste and resource expert with the German environmental organization BUND, who worked on the group's 2019 Plastic Atlas.</p><p>He explains that only the paper part of the drink carton would be recycled <em>—</em> everything else, including the plastic coating or layer or aluminum foil, would be incinerated as residual waste.</p>
More and More Multilayer Packaging
<p>How easy is it to recognize multilayer packaging? With drink cartons, it's usually obvious that they're made from a combination of different materials, but with other products, such as candy wrappers, it's a different story.</p><p>Such packaging can be made from a complex mix of up to 10 different films of plastic, which as Joachim Christiani, managing director of German recycling institute cyclos-HTP, explains, is <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-produces-record-amount-of-packaging-waste/a-51293541" target="_blank">invisible to consumers</a>.</p><p>"In recent years there's been a trend toward so-called multilayer packaging, which is extremely light and thin. It saves material as well as CO2 emissions during transport, but can't be recycled," Christiani says.</p><p>Because it is not possible to melt the different plastics together, or — at least for now — to separate the individual films from one another at recycling plants.</p>Lack of Recycled Plastic
<p>A 2017 cyclos-HTP study into the recyclability of conventional packaging waste concluded that a third of it was not recyclable, and only 40% of the remaining two-thirds was made into plastic recyclate. The rest was used as fuel <em>—</em> in other words it was incinerated.</p><p>"There was no economic or political pressure to recycle more than this amount," Christiani says. "The prescribed recycling quotas were met, and there were not nearly enough recycling plants."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxNjYwMy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTQ4MzI5M30.HL0sO8u-CFQf1FvXt4uVkyWtp5iseVH4FmaVYGkfNEY/img.png?width=980" id="b5980" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0967b762faff5003e7a353180d4ad95e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Another 2017 study by the chemical and waste disposal industry also shows that to date, Germany has not made much use of recycled plastic. According to the findings, plastic recyclate accounted for only 12% of the total amount of plastic processed in Germany <em>—</em> just under 1.8 million tons. The share of new plastic, on the other hand, was more than 12 million tons.</p>
Room for Greenwashing
<p>According to a 2018 survey by Germany's vzbv consumer protection association, most consumers would like to see more plastic recycling, especially when it comes to packaging.</p><p>Although some products come in packaging that is advertised as being "made from recycled material," Elke Salzmann, a resource protection officer with vzbv, says that can be misleading.</p><p>"It says nothing about how much recycled material the packaging actually contains," according to Salzmann. "And it also doesn't mean that the recycled plastic comes from collected plastic waste. It could just as well come from plastic leftovers created during the production of primary plastic."</p><p>The term "ocean plastic," which some textile and shoe manufacturers use to advertise the recycled plastic in their product lines, can also be misleading, Salzmann says.</p><p><span></span>"Plastic waste from the ocean is in much too bad a state to be recycled. Instead, they use plastic waste from beaches or riverbanks."</p>Laws Against Plastic
<p>Images of garbage choking our waters and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/eurythenes-plasticus-a-deep-sea-crustacean-full-of-plastic/a-52663559" target="_blank">killing marine wildlife</a> have played a key role in giving plastic a negative reputation among the public, and politicians have started to act.</p><p>Many countries worldwide have introduced bans on single-use items, and in Germany, a 2019 packaging law stipulates a plastics recycling quota of 90% from 2022, up from 36%. That said, the quota only refers to how much material has to be fed into the recycling system, not how much ultimately needs to be recycled.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxNjYxNC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzE4OTE0M30.8xGfBu2brG_AIp45i_q_LxZZu0nMvlFGAEWGL93Hv6M/img.png?width=980" id="79d47" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6bc3d22db4f442dacf798ac32ccc7671" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This may be addressed in future European Union legislation. As part of its "<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/will-trains-play-a-key-role-in-the-european-green-deal/a-52263495" target="_blank">Green Deal</a>," the European Commission <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/eu-commission-aims-to-clamp-down-on-waste-with-new-law/a-52720804" target="_blank">is aiming to move toward a circular economy</a>, and has announced an action plan to conserve resources and prevent waste.</p><p>The Commission is also being advised by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) on how to establish new rules around the use of recycled materials.</p><p>The recommendations range from landfill and export bans on plastic waste and tax rebates for recycled products, to the introduction of a plastics tax and a legal minimum quota of recycled content in packaging.</p>
Rethinking the Whole System
<p>Although plastic is a very useful material, at the end of its life it causes many problems, EASAC environmental program director Michael Norton tells DW, adding that we have to rethink the whole system and completely change the way we use plastic.</p><p>Joachim Christiani says the packaging industry is starting to catch on. Around 70% of recycled mass can currently be generated from packaging, but that figure is expected to rise in the future.</p><p>"95% is quite feasible," says the engineer, adding that sorting facilities are currently undergoing improvements, while packaging design is also changing.</p>Clear Plastics Are Easiest to Recycle
<p>As things stand, PET bottles are easiest to recycle because they're not mixed with other materials. New bottles can therefore easily be made from the old ones and the recycling rate is high. But the color of the bottle can pose a problem.</p><p>Because plastic is sorted by type rather than color, if different colors of plastic are mixed, the resulting recyclate cannot be used for light-colored packaging, which many manufacturers want. The upshot is the introduction of new plastic instead.</p><p>Consumer and environmental associations have long called for recyclability, greater sorting purity and better sorting facilities, but their most important demand remains waste avoidance through reusable systems.</p><p>"Why melt down disposable bottles to make new disposable bottles when you can refill them up to 20 times?" Buschmann asks.</p>From Your Site Articles
- EU Parliament Bans Plastics Responsible for 70% of Ocean Trash ... ›
- EU Moves to Ban Most Plastics By 2020 - EcoWatch ›
- EU Agrees to Slash Single-Use Plastics to Halt Marine Pollution ... ›
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A field of organic lettuce grows at a sustainable farm in California. thinkreaction / Getty Images
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the future of the Cannard Family Farm—whose organic vegetables supplied a single Berkeley restaurant—was looking stark.
<p>Ross Cannard is the son of an iconic leader in the local organic movement in California. "Iconoclastic," Ross says with a chuckle. Bob Cannard built his 30-year career by rejecting organic certification in favor of his own "better than organic" breed of "natural process agriculture," enriching the soil on his Green String Farm with crushed rock and compost.</p><p>He and his son have long sold the fruits of their labor to the famous restaurant Chez Panisse, where, since 1971, chef Alice Waters has pioneered an elegant cuisine based entirely on fresh, local foods straight from the farm.</p><p>But in March, the stay-at-home order hit, and the restaurant closed.</p><p>"You're a farmer. Plants are already in the ground," says Evan Wiig, director of membership and communications for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. "You make plans months and months in advance. You can't just turn on a dime."</p>
<p>Waters was worried about the vulnerable situation her workers and producers were finding themselves in. She rushed to establish a subscription CSA, which stands for community supported agriculture, offering weekly food boxes that could be picked up at the shuttered restaurant, filled with goodies from her regular producers like Cannard.</p><p>"I'm trying to connect our network with the people who would like to have that food in their home," she said on Michael Dimock's podcast, <a href="https://www.rootsofchange.org/flippingthetablepodcast/available-episodes/" target="_blank">Flipping the Table</a>, on March 26. "We can sort of skip the restaurant for now. … We could help people do the cooking in their own kitchen."</p><p>Cannard augments that market with his own local CSA, setting up a farm stand in the parking lot of Baker & Cook, a café in nearby Boyes Hot Springs, now serving only takeout. Along with produce, Cannard has his olive oil available, as well as wine from a friend's vineyard, and flowers from another local farm. Friends and neighbors are among his 100 or so customers.</p><p>This CSA model, where buyers invest in a farm's annual production upfront in exchange for a regular share of the harvest, is built on long-term relationships between farmers and consumers. It's those relationships, farmers say, springing from the fertile soil of Sonoma County, that are making survival possible. New local grassroots networks and nimbler digital marketplaces, too, are popping up to provide critical lifelines. And despite the strange, isolating atmosphere created by the coronavirus, the region is now bursting with spring growth.</p>
Building Food Communities
<p>Family farms in California and across the country have been hit hard by the impact of the coronavirus on their markets. But in the health-conscious Bay Area, where celery was already one of the first groceries to disappear from the produce rack, demand for fresh local produce has shot up. The challenge is in redirecting food from farms to new customers.</p><p>Sonoma County has historically been an agricultural region. When the organic food movement sprang up in the 1970s, this area was one of its early proponents. The first farmers markets and CSAs appeared in the 1980s and flourished, but the burgeoning network was later eclipsed by an inflated wine industry, much of it owned by distant corporations.</p><p>According to a 2018 crop report, 60,000 acres have gone to grapes, with only 500 acres in food crops. Land prices have skyrocketed, the cost of labor has gone up, and increased regulations have all made it harder to run a viable business here. Many farmers had turned to "boutique" specialty crops for restaurants.</p><p>"Farmers are always in an uphill battle, especially ecological farmers," says Wiig of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. "I often hear them say, 'I'm working my butt off and hoping for the best.'" That's even more true now, as the pandemic strangles economies the world over.</p><p>For farms with existing CSAs, Wiig says, this is a really good time. "In the beginning of March, most CSAs were struggling to fill boxes. Now some now have waiting lists, some in the 100s."</p><p>But for those who didn't have CSAs established, Wiig says, this is a really tough time. "We've been able to keep farm markets open as essential businesses, but crowds have decreased with people afraid to go out, and sales are down."</p><p>Community Alliance was quick to jump in, becoming a "matchmaker" for producers and buyers on its website. They're also providing all kinds of information for farmers about how to start and run a CSA, including useful software, relevant legislation, available funding sources, and a series of four webinars showcasing successful farms.</p><p>Farm Trails, a local nonprofit with 250 farmer members, also leapt into the fray. The organization has been building relationships between farmers and consumers for 47 years by organizing farm visits and hosting educational events. Two days after the shelter-in-place shut down regular sales outlets, Farm Trails had put up a new page on its website and invited its members to post their offerings.<span></span></p><p>"We know our farmers well," executive director Carmen Snyder says. "We did outreach to them to see what they had. Spirit Works had plenty of alcohol, so they started making lavender sanitizer, giving it away to first responders and health care workers, and selling the rest at the local hardware store."</p><p>In the online marketplace's first two days, web traffic on Farm Trails' site went up 1000%.</p><p>"Many people have been on the fence about CSAs," says Sonya Perrotti, who runs the 1-acre Coyote Family Farm in Penngrove. "This was the push." While she has always sold most of her produce in a CSA, Perrotti benefited from the new digital marketplace. She has now sold out of her 100 shares and plans to expand.</p>
Scaling Up Support
<p>F.E.E.D. Sonoma, a food hub that aggregates produce from dozens of local farms, was another quick responder. When the pandemic hit, it went from serving Bay Area restaurants to building a cooperative of farmers, filling food boxes for distribution at F.E.E.D.'s Petaluma warehouse and other drop spots in the county.</p><p>"Our local food system is extremely diverse," says co-founder Tim Page, who has the energy of a visionary combined with the skills of a businessman. "We have a ton of small farms but we don't have the infrastructure to support them. That is what F.E.E.D. is trying to establish." Since converting the restaurant supply business to a CSA, it has gone from 90 boxes to 450. Ultimately, the goal is 1,800 or more.</p><p>"I grew up in L.A.," Page says. "Every single farm is gone. The same thing will happen here if the general public does not understand the importance of it.</p><p>"That understanding was on display at the Sonoma Farmers Market, which now operates with strict restrictions and safety precautions because of the virus. "We think F.E.E.D. is going to save us," said Candy Wirtz, co-director of Paul's Produce, a well-established farm in Sonoma, as she weighed out my purchases. The CSA model could be transformative for Paul's and other farms across the country.</p><p>Subscribing to a CSA is a lifestyle change for consumers, to be sure. It means eating what's in season and learning to cook unfamiliar vegetables. But it's a change that many people are making now because of the stay-at-home orders. "People just have to learn to cook again instead of eating out," says Judith Redmond, part-owner of Full Belly Farm near Sacramento.</p><p>In light of this newfound commitment to CSAs, Perrotti, of Coyote Family Farm, says: "My hope is that this solidifies instead of going back to the way things were. I hope the importance of local farming stays at the forefront."</p>Farms With Futures
<p>To help small farmers stay in business during the crisis, Community Alliance is also advocating for stimulus dollars. "Most often subsidies go to a small number of the largest farms, or to buy food that goes to food banks from far away, while local farmers can't sell their food," Wiig says. "We want food banks to buy from local farms."</p><p>This seems like a win-win. Millions of tons of food is being plowed under as 60 million people are now going hungry, 17 million of them since the pandemic began, according to Feeding America, the national network of food banks.</p><p>But it's complicated. David Goodman of the Redwood Empire Food Bank puts it plainly: Local food is too expensive. "We distribute nine and a half million pounds of produce annually," he says. "It costs about 9 cents a pound, 3 cents to transport. With 82,000 people to feed, it would be a luxury to think of tending to local needs by buying locally."</p><p>That reticence is partly because the food bank system is tangled in bureaucracy. The USDA decides what to purchase and from where. Because of the distances between sites, the federal agency has tended to favor foods with long shelf lives, such as canned and processed foods, and long-lasting produce like apples and potatoes. "If local food is what we need, there has to be a plan," Goodman says.</p><p>Such a plan might be where short-term disaster relief meets long-term resilience. Michael Dimock is president of Roots of Change, a nonprofit organization that advocates for transforming California's food system. To get serious about preparing the food system for future disasters, Dimock says, the government needs to be involved. Roots of Change is now advocating for a tax on sugary beverages to help foot the bill.</p><p>Dimock says the state needs a paradigm shift for farms to remain viable in the face of multiplying disasters to come—not only pandemics, but fires, floods, and other symptoms of climate change. "How bold will people get in the months ahead to demand real change? My hope is they will get more radical."</p><p>Food is fundamental. While farmers have yet to face the full economic impact of this pandemic, their collaborative efforts, along with local grassroots networks, could mark the beginning of a new economy laboring to be born.</p>
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Nearly 200 Canadian organizations rolled out their demands for a "just recovery." DKosig / Getty Images
By Andrea Germanos
Nearly 200 Canadian organizations on Monday rolled out their demands for a "just recovery," saying that continuing business-as-usual after the pandemic would prevent the kind of far-reaching transformation needed to put "the health and well-being of ALL peoples and ecosystems first."
<p>The choices we make now about how to recover from this pandemic will shape not only our health and economic future, but also the future of human life on this planet," Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff said in a statement.</p>
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<p>"This moment is a reminder that the status quo can and must be disrupted," the new Just Recovery for All website declares. "We are standing on the threshold between the old world and the next and we must choose to build the future we want."</p><p>A just recovery—which would enable the government and civil society to "build back better"—rests in six key principles:</p><ol><li>Put people's health and well-being first, no exceptions. Health is a human right and is interdependent with the health and well-being of ecological systems.</li><li>Strengthen the social safety net and provide relief directly to people. Focus relief efforts on people—particularly those who are structurally oppressed by existing systems.</li><li>Prioritize the needs of workers and communities. Support must be distributed in a manner consistent with Indigenous sovereignty, a climate resilient economy, and worker rights, including safe and fair labor standards and a right to unionize. Improved conditions for essential service workers must be maintained beyond this crisis.</li><li>Build resilience to prevent future crises. We cannot recover from the current crisis by entrenching systems that will cause the next crisis.</li><li>Build solidarity and equity across communities, generations, and borders. In a globalized world, what happens to one of us matters to all of us.</li><li>Uphold Indigenous rights and work in partnership with Indigenous peoples. A Just Recovery must uphold Indigenous Rights and include the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, in line with the standard of free, prior, and informed consent.</li></ol>
<p>The principles were endorsed by progressive groups focused on a broad range of issues including 350.org, the Canadian Federation of Students, Oxfam Canada, and The Leap.</p><p>"The huge collaborative effort that brought these principles to life over many weeks of rich, challenging discussions exemplifies the kind of action we expect of political leaders as we move through this crisis," Catherine Abreu of Climate Action Network Canada said in a statement.</p><p>"It's going to take a massive and diverse community of voices to encourage governments to be bold in the face of corporate lobbies, and to put people and communities first," she said.</p><p>"Our goal was to capture the immense amount of care work happening throughout Canadian civil society right now and present a vision of a Just Recovery that leaves no one behind," Abreu explained. "We know this is a vision the majority of Canadians support, and millions of people are ready to take action."</p>
<p>As for the inevitable question—How are you going to pay for it?—the groups say the money is already there. It's just a question of changing who's on the receiving end. From the new site:</p><blockquote>The government currently gives billions of dollars in handouts to industries that harm our environment and communities, including the oil and gas industry. Canada also loses billions of dollars to offshore tax havens every year.<br><br>Right now, the government is working on a plan to rebuild our economy. It is likely that they will unveil a stimulus package, but it's on all of us to ensure that money goes directly to workers and communities, not corporations. By bailing out people, not big businesses, and closing tax loopholes, we can start to build a sustainable and just future for all.<br></blockquote><p>Dr. Courtney Howard of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment says it's clear from what she's witnessed amid the global pandemic that people are willing to use moments of crisis as turning points for positive change.</p><p>"To feel safe," she said, "we need to manage two planetary health emergencies at once—Covid-19 and its economic fallout, and climate change."</p><p>"We've shown that when pressed, we prioritize health. We take care of one another," said Howard.</p><p>"We have a generational opportunity to use this time of crisis and reflection to bring to life a vision of planetary health for all," she continued. "We've stayed home to save lives. By working together on a just and healthy recovery, we'll save more." </p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/25/nearly-200-groups-canada-vow-fight-covid-19-recovery-puts-human-and-ecological" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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Alberta Energy Minister Calls Pandemic ‘a Great Time’ to Build Pipelines Due to Protest Restrictions
2h
Politics
Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage in Edmonton on Friday, April 24, 2020. Chris Schwarz / Government of Alberta / Flickr
Anti-pipeline protests work.
That's the implication behind comments made by Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage Friday on how coronavirus social distancing requirements could ease the construction of Canada's controversial Trans Mountain Expansion project.
<p>"Now is a great time to be building a pipeline because you can't have protests of more than 15 people," Savage said, as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/pipelines-alberta-protests-physical-distancing-1.5584025" target="_blank">The Canadian Press reported</a>. "Let's get it built."</p><p>Savage made the comments while speaking on a Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors podcast. After the remark, the interviewer laughed, but Savage did not.</p>
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<p>Savage also argued that the political and economic climate caused by the pandemic would not favor protesters.</p><p>"People are not going to have tolerance and patience for protests that get in the way of people working," she said on the podcast. "People need jobs and those types of ideological protests that get in the way are not going to be tolerated by ordinary Canadians."</p><p>The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which would nearly triple the amount of oil carried from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day, has faced fierce opposition from environmental groups, the B.C. government and some <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous" target="_self">indigenous</a> communities along its route, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52804344" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>. Pipeline opponents cite the risk of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil-spill" target="_self">oil spills</a>, the threat to endangered orcas off the B.C. coast and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> as reasons the project should not be expanded.</p>
<p>Construction on the project began in December, but in the podcast Savage acknowledged that protests had been a major hurdle.</p><p>"The activists have been so effective because the industry has been so ineffective," Savage said, as <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/alberta-energy-minister-pipeline-protest_ca_5ecc1dc5c5b6fd5bd57f1215?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACZLberJaRiI3IUecNLxlObw0VUGa0voqOClhc59lw9R-GhSH90WGTBduckFaRR4tyjBO1Bhszp82L6E5sFRFZcpb2bnc7_SK6oGNl-396Mv68dfczXkeJhu6UohURTawVCYUJH8S9LGdDjwZvethwPJqnzrwqIZah4_enMre5cn" target="_blank">HuffPost reported</a>. "They outsmarted the entire industry […] they got ahead of everyone."</p><p>Both Alberta and British Columbia have actually increased their upward limit on outdoor gatherings to 50, according to The Canadian Press. But while protesting in person against a pipeline might be more difficult because of the coronavirus pandemic, the outbreak has actually given environmental groups and frontline communities another reason to oppose them. Because <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil-and-gas" target="_self">oil and gas</a> has been designated an "essential service" by the Alberta government, work camps have spread the new disease to rural areas, HuffPost pointed out. In one April incident, an outbreak at Imperial Oil's Kearl mine led to more than 100 cases in Western Canada. Another outbreak at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. Horizon oilsands mine generated at least five new cases last week.</p><p>"Can't believe we have to say it but it absolutely is NOT a 'great time' to build a pipeline," <a href="https://350.org/no-cgl/" target="_blank">350 Canada</a> tweeted in response to Savage's comments. "We are in the midst of a health and climate crisis. And setting up man camps will endanger the lives of Indigenous and rural communities with already strained healthcare systems."</p>
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<p>Savage's spokesperson Kavi Bal acknowledged that she spoke on the podcast but denied that social distancing measures were good for the industry.</p><p>"We respect the right to lawful protests," Bal told The Canadian Press. "I would note that the limitations to public gatherings … have benefited no one – including project proponents and any opposition groups."</p><p>Irfan Sabir, the Opposition New Democrat energy critic, denounced Savage's remarks and Alberta's ruling United Conservative Party (UCP), led by pro-<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil-fuel</a> Premier <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-construction-2645607020.html" target="_self">Jason Kenney</a>.</p><p>"These comments do not come as a shock," he said. "The UCP have already used the pandemic as an excuse to suspend environmental monitoring. When combined with the minister's latest comments, this will harm the reputation of Alberta's energy industry and inhibit our ability to attract investment and get our product to market."</p>
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WHO Suspends Trial of Trump-Touted COVID-19 Treatment Hydroxychloroquine Due to Safety Concerns
3h
Health + Wellness
A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, on May 20, 2020. GEORGE FREY / AFP via Getty Images
Citing safety concerns, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday it was suspending its trial of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that has been championed by President Donald Trump as a treatment for the new coronavirus.
<p>The WHO decision followed the release of a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext" target="_blank">Lancet study</a> Friday that found that COVID-19 patients who took the drug were more likely to die or develop heart problems.</p><p>"The steering committee met over the weekend, in the light of this uncertainty," WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/25/861913688/who-halts-hydroxychloroquine-trial-over-safety-concerns?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&fbclid=IwAR1AyNjoLvVhx_vE0xP8ACBGjtklngM6G8Y3vVT2tzx9U18tkqqK62kdqTM" target="_blank">told NPR</a>. "We decided we should be proactive, err on the side of caution and suspend enrollment temporarily into the hydroxychloroquine arm [of the Solidarity trial]."</p>
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<p>The WHO Solidarity Trial is an effort to test the effectiveness of potential COVID-19 treatments, including hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir and an HIV combination therapy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine-trial-trump-coronavirus-safety-fears" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. It involves 3,500 patients from 17 countries randomly assigned one of four experimental treatments, according to NPR.</p><p>Unlike the WHO trial, the Lancet study was based on observation rather than a controlled experiment. However, the number of people in the study — 96,000 — raised concerns, Swaminathan explained to NPR.</p><p>Of the 96,000 in the Lancet study, nearly 15,000 were given hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, with or without an antibiotic, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-52799120" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>. The death rate for patients treated with hydroxychloroquine was double the control, at 18 percent compared to nine percent. The death rate for patients treated with chloroquine was 16.4 percent.</p><p>In light of these findings, the Executive Group of the Solidarity Trial met Saturday and agreed to a temporary pause of WHO's hydroxychloroquine trial, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus <a href="https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---25-may-2020" target="_blank">told reporters Monday</a>.</p><p>"The review will consider data collected so far in the Solidarity Trial and, in particular robust randomised available data, to adequately evaluate the potential benefits and harms from this drug," he said.</p>
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<p>Swaminathan told NPR that WHO would decide whether to resume the hydroxychloroquine tests in a week or two.</p><p>In the meantime, Tedros said the other arms of the Solidarity Trial were continuing, and that concerns about hydroxychloroquine were limited to its use as a COVID-19 treatment.</p><p>"I wish to reiterate that these drugs are accepted as generally safe for use in patients with autoimmune diseases or malaria," he said.</p><p>The news came the day after Trump claimed to have "just finished" a course of hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against the new coronavirus in an interview aired on Sinclair Broadcasting, as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/25/coronavirus-whos-solidarity-trial-is-pausing-tests-for-hydroxychloroquine-amid-safety-concerns.html" target="_blank">CNBC reported</a>.</p><p>"And by the way, I'm still here," he said.</p><p>Trump first began to promote the use of hydroxychloroquine against the new coronavirus in March, but the Lancet study is not the first to question its safety as a treatment for the new disease.</p>
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<p>Studies published in April found that hydroxychloroquine taken with the antibiotic azithromycin could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/covid-19-drugs-risk-trump-2645713327.html" target="_self">increase the risk of heart failure</a>, and that U.S. Veterans Health Administration patients treated with hydroxychloroquine <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-effectiveness-study-2645803928.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">had higher death rates</a> than those who were not.</p><p>The WHO trial itself had not produced any data showing increased risk from hydroxychloroquine before it was suspended, Swaminathan told NPR.</p><p>The White House declined to comment to CNBC on WHO's decision to suspend the trial, and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond in time.</p>
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The Earth's atmosphere. NASA
By Jeremy Deaton
You may have heard about the hole in the ozone layer, which hovers over Antarctica. It has shrunk over time thanks to policies that curbed the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. In the nearly 40 years that NASA has kept track, it has never been smaller. That's the good news.
<p>The bad news is that a separate hole in the ozone layer briefly <a href="https://www.livescience.com/arctic-ozone-hole-closes.html" target="_blank">opened up</a> in the Arctic in March before closing in April, and climate change may be partly to blame.</p><p>This isn't the first <a href="https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/NH.html" target="_blank">such rift</a> to develop in the Arctic, but it is the largest. Scientists say that in March, a stratospheric polar vortex — a band of strong, frigid winds circling the pole — corralled chlorine and bromine that chewed away at the ozone layer. Scientists said that <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2006GL026731" target="_blank">climate</a> <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003GL018844" target="_blank">change</a> may have set the stage for a colder, and thus more powerful, polar vortex.</p><p>"In those years when a vortex can spin and set itself up and be undisturbed, it's getting colder and colder," said Ross Salawitch, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland. Cold air strengthens polar vortexes, allowing them to deal more damage to the ozone layer, he said.</p>
<p>This year's Arctic polar vortex was unusually strong and long-lived, helping to deplete the ozone layer. At the same time, currents that would normally deliver ozone from surrounding areas were stagnant. The bruising was far less severe than what is typically seen over the South Pole, though. At the South Pole, stratospheric polar vortexes are reliably strong thanks to the extreme cold, so the ozone layer regularly thins.</p><p>In a stratospheric polar vortex, high-altitude <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_stratospheric_cloud" target="_blank">clouds form</a> from trace gasses in the atmosphere. Pollutants containing chlorine and bromine are essentially benign until they run into one of these clouds. Then they transform into chemicals capable of terrorizing the ozone layer.</p><p>They still need sunlight to do their dirty work, however. That comes at the start of spring —around September in the Southern Hemisphere and around March in the Northern Hemisphere. As the days get longer, these chemicals react with sunlight to deplete stratospheric ozone.</p><p>Because Antarctica is so isolated from the rest of the world, a strong polar vortex can form undisturbed. That's not the case in the Arctic, where the mix of land and water surrounding the North Pole produces more dynamic weather that can weaken or disrupt a polar vortex.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMwNjMxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTQwNDE1N30.gWej2PmnNRQE8RsCuiF3UvmowoEgPqZXsKE4i8ZLvNo/img.jpg?width=980" id="8a1e9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="883655d17c29fcbc095e4aedcd0198a1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Polar stratospheric clouds activate the chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. NASA
<p>Ozone holes rarely form at the North Pole — the last one appeared in 2011 — and they are typically short-lived. But what happens in the Arctic does not stay in Arctic. As a result of the damage, the ozone layer is now a little thinner everywhere else. While it will repair itself over time, the recent polar vortex has likely slowed the recovery.</p><p>At the South Pole, the ozone layer tears open yearly. Scientists first discovered the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. Researchers determined that it was caused by chemicals containing chlorine and bromine. These include <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/chlorofluorocarbon" target="_blank">chlorofluorocarbons</a>, which are found in air conditioners, refrigerators and spray cans, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/halon" target="_blank">halons</a>, which are found in fire extinguishers, and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout/methyl-bromide" target="_blank">methyl bromide</a>, which is used to kill weeds, insects and other pests. The discovery was met with alarm, as the ozone layer filters out dangerous ultraviolet radiation, helping to sustain life on Earth.</p><p>"If there was no ozone layer, the ultraviolet radiation would sterilize the Earth's surface," said Paul Newman, chief scientist for earth sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Crop yields go down as ultraviolet exposure goes up." In humans, ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and cataracts, and can weaken the immune system.</p><p>To restore the ozone layer, in 1987, countries adopted the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Montreal-Protocol" target="_blank">Montreal Protocol</a> to stem the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. It worked. Over time, the hole grew smaller and smaller, and the ozone layer began to heal. By the middle of this century, scientists expect it will be fully restored.</p>
<p>While many Americans <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/15/is-the-ozone-hole-causing-climate-change/" target="_blank">mistakenly</a> <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2010_10_Americans%E2%80%99-Knowledge-of-Climate-Change.pdf" target="_blank">believe</a> that the hole in the ozone layer is driving climate change, it may be that the reverse is true — that climate change is harming the ozone layer.</p><p>Carbon pollution is acting like a blanket, trapping heat in the lower atmosphere. As a result, it is both warming the surface of the Earth and preventing heat from reaching the upper atmosphere. As such, the lower atmosphere is warming, while the upper atmosphere is actually cooling. Polar vortexes grow stronger in the cold, producing more of the high-altitude clouds that activate the chemicals that eat up the ozone layer.</p><p>"The temperatures in the stratosphere will probably be decreasing somewhat, and so that may slow down the recovery of the ozone layer," Manney said. "We have this situation in the Arctic, where we have had a couple of winters in the last couple of decades that have been much colder than usual."</p><p>Newman believes that falling temperatures will do little to deplete the ozone layer, however. He is more concerned with how climate change will alter currents that replenish Arctic ozone or break up the Arctic polar vortex.</p>
<p>"We don't really see a strong cooling of the Arctic stratosphere," he said. "The question in my mind is rather, 'What is the impact of climate change on these large-scale weather systems?'"</p><p>Salawitch said that it is difficult to determine what, exactly, the future holds for the ozone layer in the Arctic. Models disagree as to how much or how fast temperatures will change at the North Pole, or what that means for the polar vortex. As such, some say Arctic ozone will continue to thin, while others project a speedy recovery.</p><p>Scientists emphasized that the recent ozone hole in the Arctic would have been substantially worse had countries not taken steps to curb pollution. They said the episode speaks to the importance of the Montreal Protocol.</p><p>"We do have to keep in mind that the Montreal Protocol was very successful in getting the world to stop emitting these chlorofluorocarbons. The ozone layer is starting to recover," Manney said. "It's a remarkable success story."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/another-hole-in-the-ozone-layer-climate-change-may-be-to-blame-f86825b19135" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Garden interns learn plant and weed identification at the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. Cheyenne River Youth Project / Facebook
By Stephanie Woodard
Many Americans are now experiencing an erratic food supply for the first time. Among COVID-19's disruptions are bare supermarket shelves and items available yesterday but nowhere to be found today. As you seek ways to replace them, you can look to Native gardens for ideas and inspiration.
<p>"Working in a garden develops your relationship to the land," says Aubrey Skye, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lpPMKFw77k&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2BPC1A7hvv2M_-MzkJsMBsDXMu7LDrlVqPy9ydDiqWJW1T6nQZ3__gcWs" target="_blank">a Hunkpapa Lakota gardener</a>. "Our ancestors understood that. Look at the old pictures. It's etched on their faces. When you understand it as well, a sense of scarcity and insecurity transforms into a feeling of abundance and control—something we all need these days." For several years, Skye ran a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/ndwp/traditional-foods/index.html" target="_blank">CDC-sponsored gardening program</a> on Standing Rock, a reservation that straddles North and South Dakota. He created hundreds of productive plots, large and small, for fellow tribal members.</p>
<p>Tribes' food-scarcity problems developed after signing treaties with the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. Under these agreements, tribes typically transferred land to the federal government in return for education, health care, and other services. The diminished tribal homelands that resulted, along with continual federal efforts to decrease Native land holdings, severely restricted the hunting, fishing, and other activities with which tribes had fed their people since time immemorial. To force tribes onto reservations, Skye adds, the United States purposely destroyed critical food sources, such as the huge buffalo herds that once roamed the Plains.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMwOTMxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTc4OTAyNH0.pl3o_XN6vhnO41CvxoiGNX2jSuSmrV1f6SP3HfpqX9w/img.jpg?width=980" id="a99f6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="12609ff38757532adcf89cb37649a3bf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Aubrey Skye, Standing Rock Sioux tribal member, tills gardens for himself and other tribal members. He does some by hand, and others with this tractor. Photo by Stephanie Woodard.
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Bird-Womans-Garden-Agriculture/dp/0873512197/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1588337839&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Abundant lifeways</a> were decimated. Starvation and death ensued. Massacres, such as Wounded Knee and Sand Creek, killed additional American Indians, as did forced removals from homelands, with the Cherokee Trail of Tears and the Navajo Long Walk among the best-known. The injustices continue today. Oil and gas pipelines, mines, industrial animal farms, and other projects may be sited to <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2017/01/24/the-spirit-of-standing-rock-on-the-move/" target="_blank">imperil tribal lands</a> rather than those of other peoples. Poverty, limited health care, and, in some areas, lack of running water for frequent anti-virus hand-washing, means the COVID-19 pandemic has hit certain tribes, notably the Navajo Nation, hard.</p>
<h3>Growing Strength</h3><p>Incessant disasters have created economic and social burdens, including hunger, that fall heavily on children. "These tragedies are so hard on kids," says the Cheyenne River Youth Project's director Julie Garreau. The project is on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, in South Dakota, just south of Standing Rock. "Don't ever let people tell you children don't know what's going on," she says. "The pandemic is creating enormous additional stress, beyond what they were already struggling with."</p><p>Her program works to make up the difference. With its 2.5-acre garden, café, gym, and library, the organization has long provided children with good food and a safe place to learn and have fun. Now that tribal children are sheltering at home, the youth project's garden and the sack meals her organization delivers ensure that, at the very least, they have healthy food each day, says Garreau, who is a tribal member.</p><p>"I'm so grateful," she says. "We're a nonprofit, and our funders contacted us—we didn't go to them—and gave us support for meals with a hot entrée, juice, and a healthy snack like fruit or nuts. We started driving around in our pickup with food for 35 kids, then 50, then 75." The youth project is working to get the word out. "We hope to reach 250 kids," Garreau says.</p><p>Dream of Wild Health also focuses on youth as it restores the multitribal urban-Indian community of Minneapolis and St. Paul to physical well-being and a spiritual relationship to the Earth. "We grow leaders and seeds," says Community Outreach and Culture Teacher Hope Flanagan, who is Seneca. "An urban upbringing can mean our youth lose track of our old way of walking on this Earth." Dream of Wild Health helps the children relearn this knowledge, she says.</p><p>In the process, the group's activities help the community reclaim <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-sovereignty">food sovereignty</a>—ready access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food—according to Executive Director Neely Snyder, a St. Croix Chippewa tribal member. Dream of Wild Health meets this need by distributing crops that it grows on its nearby 30-acre farm: It participates in a farmers market, delivers household shares of farm produce to locations in Native neighborhoods of both Minneapolis and St. Paul, and partners with other community organizations, such as the Minneapolis American Indian Center.</p>
<p>Since the COVID-19 challenges began, innovation has been key. To continue to offer chef-led cooking lessons for youth, yet maintain social distance, Dream of Wild Health delivers ingredients to the children's homes and runs the program via a video link. Virtual activities have proven popular. When a seed-saving and sacred medicines <a href="https://dreamofwildhealth.org/event/online-sacred-medicines-garden-beginnings-workshop" target="_blank">workshop</a> moved online, the typical 40- to 50-person audience for a live event burgeoned to some 220, Snyder says.</p><p>To grow real crops in a real garden requires getting out on the land—with a difference nowadays. This summer, Skye anticipates, reservation gardeners will either work alone or in groups practicing social distancing. Dream of Wild Health farmers are figuring out how student interns, whom they call Garden Warriors, can work on the group's farm and maintain distance.</p><p>While gardening, Skye says, tribal gardeners will put into action traditional practices that arise from close observations of nature and the belief that humans, plants, animals, and other aspects of the natural world form a <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/01/07/food-system-seeds/" target="_blank">mutually reliant community</a>. We are all related, Skye says. "Gardening and eating food you've raised give you a direct connection to Mother Earth."</p><p>Gardeners are necessarily optimists. At a time when our world is so dangerous, <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/04/28/coronavirus-grow-food/" target="_blank">the garden is a place of refuge</a>. "We will come out of this crisis," Garreau said in an email. "To do so, we must not stop planning and planting." Taking cues from Native gardening practices can help even novice gardeners get growing in these difficult circumstances.</p><p>Follow Indigenous gardeners' advice to grow your own plot, however small or experimental. At a time when stay-at-home orders continue to try and keep populations healthy, Garreau sums up the importance of sinking your hands into the soil: "Gardens represent so much more," Garreau continued. "Food, yes, but a belief in our future. Gardens represent resiliency, strength, wellness, culture."</p>
<h3>1. Plot Your Success</h3><p>Experienced gardeners may be comfortable planting big fields of their favorite crops. Skye has a nearly 1-acre plot just downhill of his Standing Rock home. But if this is your gardening debut—as it was for some tribal members he provided with gardens through the CDC project—ensure success by starting small. Try a few pots or raised beds, or perhaps a small in-ground plot, with easy-to-grow plants, he says. Good options might be tomatoes, peppers, green beans, radishes, summer and winter squash, onions, or leafy greens. "Don't bite off more than you can chew!" Skye quips.</p>
<h3>2. Cultivate Plant Friendships</h3><p>Many American gardeners know about the Three Sisters—in the celebrated trio, cornstalks serve as trellises for beans, which in turn fix nitrogen (fertilizer), while big, flat squash leaves conserve soil moisture and keep down weeds. Such plant groupings, also called <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/323589.Carrots_Love_Tomatoes" target="_blank">companion plants</a>, are expressions of cooperation and sharing, says the Mohawk director of the Traditional Native American Farmers Association, Clayton Brascoupé. "Your garden should be like a healthy forest, which has trees of various sizes," he says. "Look at nature, and figure out combinations that mimic it."</p><p>In his gardens at Tesuque Pueblo, north of Santa Fe, you can see peas twining up corn plants and basil rising above the broad, flat leaves of watermelon. "Experiment!" he says. "Plants can surprise you. One year, we discovered that garbanzos and corn really enjoy each other."</p>
<h3>3. Make Room for Hard-Working Beauties</h3><p><a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/02/07/yard-sustainability-native-plants/" target="_blank">Embellish your garden with colorful flowers</a>, particularly <a href="https://choosenatives.org/" target="_blank">those native to your area</a>. "They attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators," says Skye, adding that pollinators are an integral part of a plant's life cycle. "Without them, the harvest wouldn't happen, and we would be looking at extreme food shortages, not just occasional gaps. By giving pollinators flowers they like, we support them, just as they support us."</p>
<h3>4. Keep Crops Cozy</h3><p>Got a plant that's struggling? Give it a rock! Brascoupé explains that in Southwest Native gardens, rocks are commonly set next to seedlings or plants that need help. They act as heat sinks, smoothing out day-night temperature variations as they soak up the sun's heat and release it in evening's chill. The practice may have been more widespread, he says, appearing as far north as Iroquois gardens in the U.S. Northeast. It makes sense, he says; in a cold region, rocks protect seedlings from unexpected early-season frost.</p>
<h3>5. Source Materials Locally and for Free</h3><p>For no-cost drip irrigation, Brascoupé uses a fine needle to poke a hole in the neck of clean soda-pop bottles or milk jugs. He then fills the containers with water, replaces their caps, and pushes their pierced necks into the soil.</p><p>Conserve soil moisture and keep weeds down by surrounding the plants with mulching materials that would otherwise have been discarded. People spend time and money getting rid of cardboard, shredded office paper, lawn clippings, and leaves, Brascoupé says. "Tell neighbors, 'I can take that off your hands.' Build human relationships."</p>
<h3>6. Embrace Dandelions</h3><p>Don't banish dandelions. Welcome these supposed weeds! Their leaves are delicious and nutritious, and their taproots break up hardened soil, I learned from Native gardeners. My New York City backyard used to be so compacted, little grew there. I tried scattering dandelion seeds around the yard. They grew and blossomed, and soon earthworms moved in. The soil became soft, friable, and plant-friendly. Earthworms are at it 24-7, working on your behalf, according to Skye. "What more could you ask for?" he says.</p>
<h3>7. Include Healing Herbs</h3><p>Skye has a small medicine-wheel garden by his home, where he delights in growing echinacea, chamomile, comfrey, and other medicinals from seed he saves from one year to the next. Such circular plots are traditionally places to grow herbs and thereby experience their delectable flavors and the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/221976.The_Medicine_Wheel_Garden" target="_blank">natural healing they promote</a>.</p>
<h3>8. Save Your Seeds</h3><p>At the end of the season, <a href="https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/seed-saving-instructions" target="_blank">save the seeds</a> of plants that thrived—and that you enjoyed—in your garden. You can help ensure your future food supply and, if you include unusual or heritage varieties, do your part to sustain biodiversity.</p><p>Seed-saving preserves history as well, Skye says. He called seeds time capsules. "We Native people have always saved them. As we plant, and save, and replant, the seeds go through all we are going through, the good times and the bad." The Dream of Wild Health seed collection, for example, includes a Cherokee family's gift of corn that survived the tribe's deadly Trail of Tears, a forced march that displaced their ancestors from their original homelands.</p><p>Today, danger confronts all of us on this Earth. "We were already facing climate change, and now there is the pandemic," Skye says. The seeds will always be there, to provide both food and a spiritual connection to the Earth, he says. "They are how we will survive."</p><p>Garreau echoes this sentiment: "When we come out of this terrible pandemic, we will have learned to be stronger. We will be invincible."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/05/20/garden-advice-indigenous-food-growers/" target="_blank">YES! Magazine</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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