Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News

The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund

The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.

Volume 15, Number 2 • Summer 2007

Grassroots Action Lawn Care That Doesn’t Cost The Earth

Lawn Care That Doesn’t Cost The Earth is a series of five articles produced by Pesticide Free Ontario with funding from the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network & Fund. These are fun articles for building awareness and personal action and promoting the elimination of cosmetic pesticides. Below is an excerpt from Article 3, written by Susan Koswan.

Article 3: To amend or not to amend: the zen of composting and using what you have

If our consumer society had its way, we’d be buying annuals every year, hauling in yards and yards of topsoil, fertilizing four times a year and spraying pesticides to kill every bug and weed that had the misfortune to find its way into our yard. The golf course lawn, the flower border, the strategically placed one point two trees …

But what price are we paying for this photo-op? The impact of our lawn and gardening choices don’t stop at the edge of our properties and we must consciously decide whether to be beneficial, benign, or harmful to our world.

I admit I wrote "zen and composting" with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the path to gardening (and environmental) enlightenment leads directly from that pile of decomposing garden and kitchen scraps in your yard.

For complete articles visit http://www.pesticidereform.ca/glhabitat.htm.

Disclaimer: The interpretations and conclusions presented in this newsletter represent the opinions of the individual authors. They in no way represent the views of the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, the C.S. Mott Foundation, subscribers, donors, or any organization mentioned in this publication.

The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund builds effective community-based citizen action to protect and restore the water quality of the Great Lakes basin. We work toward this goal by providing financial assistance, communications and networking assistance and technical assistance to citizens and grassroots watershed groups throughout the Great Lakes basin. Through these efforts we work with over 1,800 grassroots watershed groups and citizens to protect and restore the rivers, lakes and wetlands in their communities. The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, Inc. is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization.

For more information, please contact:

info@glhabitat.org
P.O. Box 2479, Petoskey, MI 49770
PH (231) 347-1181;
FX (231) 347-5928