LAWSUIT ENDS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS ON WILDLIFE REFUGE

LAWSUIT ENDS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS ON WILDLIFE REFUGE
Ruling on Delaware’s Prime Hook May Affect Farming on Scores of Other Refuges
by Jeff Ruch
(202) 265-7337
March 24, 2009

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1171

Washington, DC — A federal court has ordered the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to stop planting genetically engineered (GE) crops on its Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. While the ruling is limited to Prime Hook, the lawsuit may serve as a model for similar litigation at more than 80 other national wildlife refuges now growing GE crops across the country.

Filed in April 2006 by the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic on behalf of Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety, the federal suit charged that the Fish & Wildlife Service had illegally entered into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties, allowing hundreds of acres to be plowed over without required environmental review and contrary to the Service’s own policy prohibiting GE crops.

To read the full article: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1171