Online Store

Buy CATs Gear

Support CATs! Use

for all your internet searches

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to drastically increase pesticide spraying projects in California’s National Forests. These projects are risky, unnecessary, and potentially precedent setting.  The time is now to stand together and demand that our public forestlands are managed with alternatives to toxic chemicals.

Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) is vigorously opposing U.S. Forest Service proposals for the most extreme forest herbicide applications in California in over two decades, with the four largest projects covering a total of 40,000 acres. Spraying could begin as soon as this summer and  CATs is concerned that this is just the beginning of a return to large-scale herbicide use in California’s National Forests.

Please find below a sample letter addressed to U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, protesting the Forest Service’s proposed plans for unnecessary pesticide applications and asking for her assistance to stop this trend.  If you would like to join CATs’ efforts to stop toxic spraying on your public lands, please sign and mail the letter (or write your own), and/or call, email or visit one of Senator Boxer’s offices and let her know that you don’t approved of poisons in your public lands.

After twenty years of minimal spray projects, pesticide projects are being proposed with alarming frequency.  CATs has strong evidence showing that many of these spray-based projects are unnecessary, not science-based, and hazardous.  We utilize court recognized experts, scientists, photos, and studies, all of which contradict the wisdom and need for these pesticide-based plans.  Still, we need your help.

Senator Boxer is a leader on environmental and public health issues. CATs is looking for her support.  We need Senator Boxer to use her considerable political influence to help put an end to these unnecessary and hazardous pesticide applications on our public lands.

Please talk to your family and community members, pass this message along, and help rally against the use of pesticides in our national forests and public lands.  The more people who speak out against these proposed spray plans, the more effective our voice will be.  Effective and feasible alternatives management options have been submitted by CATs and it is time we demand their use.  Ask Senator Boxer to use the power of her office to help put an end to these pesticide projects in our forests.

On behalf of CATs, I commend you for your dedication to protect your health and environment from the unnecessary use of pesticides, and thank you for assisting in our efforts to minimize U.S. Forest Service pesticide use in California.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Pete Harrison
Forestry and Public Lands Program Associate