Watch Late Farmer Terry Greenwood Tell Josh Fox About the Fracking Site That Killed His Cattle

When filmmaker Josh Fox visited Pennsylvania farmer Terry Greenwood during what would be his last days on Earth, Greenwood's only request was for the Gasland director to "tell my story."
"So what does that mean? Does it mean tell the story of how gas companies barged onto his land," Fox asked in his a tribute to Greenwood for the Gasland blog. "Does it mean speak about the water contamination they suffered, the insult added to injury when [the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] ignored his complaints, the death of the cattle, his own death to cancer?"
Fox decided that was a big part of the story, along with exposing the generosity, smile and knack for truth-telling that Greenwood possessed. That's why Fox decided to upload a previously unreleased video interview on Greenwood's property from four or five years ago. In it, Greenwood describes the lies and bullying he received from the owners of a nearby fracking site and the contamination his animals received as a result.
"I said, ‘Would you please go elsewhere? I'm farming,'" Greenwood recalls telling an energy company representative. "They says, ‘No, we're drilling. And if you don't let us, we'll go eminent domain,' and they said, ‘we'll take your property.'"
Greenwood was featured in a video and campaign from New Yorkers Against Fracking last year in which people from Pennsylvania warned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo about their experiences.
Fox said he admired Greenwood's willingness to not only speak out, but smile despite what he had been through.
"This was a man who was truly brave, truly courageous in walking out into the public eye to tell his own story," Fox wrote. "And this was a man who did it without anger, although his anger would have been justified, who did it without self pity or depression, although no one would have blamed him for either. This was a man who could never prove all of what was done to him, but could only prove himself to be a good man, and he proved it with each sentence and in every gesture and smile.
"For us to tell it now is to try to be as brave, kind, straightforward and loving ... We owe you Terry. We'll miss you brother."
At first glance, you wouldn't think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators.
Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Australia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. It is home to more than 7% of all the world's plant and animal species, many of which are endemic. One such species, the Pharohylaeus lactiferus bee, was recently rediscovered after spending nearly 100 years out of sight from humans.
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