The Center for Biological Diversity Saturday launched its new Environmental Health program, greatly expanding its capacity to protect wildlife, people and the environment from pesticides, rodenticides, lead, mining, industrial pollution, and air and water pollution.

 

“The future of people is deeply intertwined with the fate of all the other species that evolved beside us,” said Lori Ann Burd, the program’s director. “This new program will work to protect biodiversity and human health from toxic substances while promoting a deep understanding of the connection between the health of people and imperiled species.”

 

The use of toxic pesticides has been linked to the decline of monarch butterflies and native pollinators, as well as reproductive harm and kidney damage, among other diseases, in humans. Lead poisoning is a serious problem for species like California condors and golden eagles, and even at low exposure rates lead can cause serious harm to children, including damage to their brains and nervous systems.

 

“We all rely on a clean and healthy environment to provide the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food that nourishes us,” said Jonathan Evans, the Environmental Health program’s legal director. “The more we protect the incredible wildlife that surrounds us from the rampant onslaught of pollution, the better we leave this earth for future generations of both wildlife and people.”

 

Two key areas of focus for the program will be:

 

• Reducing pesticides that threaten people and wildlife and working to ensure dangerous pesticides stay out of our food and away from schools and national wildlife refuges.

• Protecting air and water quality, including tackling toxic soot pollution and battling destructive suction dredge mining.