Date: 1/21/2012 4:27:04 PM ( 12 y ) ... viewed 1935 times
ORIGINS OF ARUNDO DONAX
Origin
This species is thought to be native to northern Africa (i.e. Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia), the Arabian Peninsula (i.e. Saudi Arabia), western Asia (i.e. Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), Ukraine, the Indian Sub-continent (i.e. India, Nepal and Pakistan) and eastern Asia (i.e. Myanmar, China, Japan and Taiwan). http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/03030800-0b07-490a-8d04-0605030c...
MORE ON ORIGINS OF ARUNDO DONAX REPORTED HERE
Arundo donax originates from the Indian subcontinent. It was known and utilised as a significant economic cultivated plant in ancient Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago. This plant got everywhere, including Europe along the ancient trade routes, as falling parts of packaging and storing materials
In 1937 the textile-producing SNIA Viscosa (Italy) started to build Torviscosa, Friuli region, North-Italy. One of these factories produced viscose from the Arundo donax. In Torviscosa production and processing was realised in a cultural area of 6,000 ha. In 1949 the history of Arundo donax and its industrial utilisation was put on the screen by Michelangelo Antonioni in a short film entitled Seven Reeds, One Suit - "SETTE CANNE, UN VESTITO".
WHAT IS THE PROGRESS REPORT ON THE
ARUNDO NATION MOVIE?
I want to know.
Have not heard from Patricia Pagaling
THE ARUNDO NATiON MOVIE
This is the story of two friends who hit upon a novel way to try to stop an herbicidal spraying campaign in their bucolic canyon: They found a green company to make the spraying’s target, an invasive cane species called Arundo donax, into a commercially viable crop. If they succeed, Monsanto, makers of the herbicide used in the campaign (Roundup®), might just back down. This alternately light-hearted and hard-hitting documentary captures real-life quest in an amusing tale that also lays bare the perils of pesticide use and corporate rule. Patty Pagaling, an Ojai valley resident finds out that Monsanto's legendary glysophate (a derivative of RoundUp) is being sprayed in her pristine Matilija Canyon to kill the “devil weed” Arundo donax. Problem is glysophate is known to cause serious health problems including lymphatic cancer with impacts to wildlife and water systems.
Patty, who has a background in Native American culture and education decides to take on one of the largest chemical corporations in America. She forms a local group, Pesticide Free Ojai Valley and pretty soon they find themselves in broiled in a series of random "sprays" for apple & gypsy moths and other pests the county and state of California has deemed deleterious. Patty takes her case to the county supervisors but finds political ineptitude and indifference, with a long standing insidious relationship to the chemical giant. Deciding it's better to fight fire with fire, Patty and her activist friends decide to harvest the Arundo reed and turn it into everything from perfume, bread to couture underwear. Going from her hippy digs to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills on a quest to find the best product ideas for Arundo, along the way her journey exposes Monsanto's chemical treadmill and the revolving door between the chemical giant and the EPA, as well as the viability and beauty of Arundo and it's incredible history as a cure all with multiple uses. The film uses humor, adventure and the personal courage of it's activists to engage the audience.
PFOV Campaign Leader: Patricia Pagaling
Producer: Patricia Pagaling
Consulting Producer: Carolyn Scott
Status: In production summer 2009. We will be producing a promo to raise funding.
For a full treatment contact: Patricia Pagaling clairdeluna333@yahoo.com
Pesticide Free Ojai WEBSITE: http://www.pesticidefreeojaivalley.org/
THE VANISHING OF THE BEES IS GOING TO FORCE GMO's OUT OF FOOD CHAIN
The farming industry will have to change its own practices. The beekeepers are at risk. The conventional farmers are losing their pollinators. We will get rid of GMO's because of these losses. It is aweful right now, but it will be good later. This will force them to break their ties with Monsanto. This will cause the food crisis in America. This will cause them to outlaw it. The legislators will have to do something. --Liora Leah Mother Earth Heals
TOM SCOTT ON INVASIVE PLANTS
INVASIVE PLANT MEDICINE
with Timothy Scott
Based on his book INVASIVE PLANT MEDICINE, Tim Scott will demonstrate the ecological benefits and healing abilities of invasive plants. Contrary to conventional thought, these prolific plants are actually serving essential environmental needs by protecting disturbed areas, enhancing biodiversity, purifying ecosystems, and revitalizing the land. While at the same time, these widespread plants are also providing inhabitants powerful healing remedies, which in many cases have documented medicinal uses for thousands of years, and are desperately in need today.
INVASION BIOLOGY BY DAVID THEODOROPOLES IS AN EYE OPENER
David Theodoropoules speaks about Invasion Biology at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene OR, March 5th 2011.
THIS IS FROM THE PLANTS FOR A FUTURE SITE
ON THE PAGE ABOUT ARUNDO DONAX...
I, Leslie, was led to this Januarty 16, 2012, by Keep The Beet...I looked up Arundo Donax on the Plants for a Future Site. I found this powerful comment from Patty P.
IT IS FROM PATTY P
Q: But aren't alien invasive species a real threat? What about Eucalyptus, Star Thistle, Scotch Broom and wild boars? Don't they destroy native ecosystems? A: No! This is herbicide industry propaganda.
These species are symptoms of man's destructive abuse of the land, not the cause, expanding into heavily disturbed, overgrazed, polluted areas, often helping heal the land, and filling niches in the ecosystem opened by man's destruction of natives. Star thistle & Scotch Broom are heavily used by native herbivores and pollinators including wild native bees & butterflies, mice, deer, etc. They protect and rebuild soils damaged by decades of overgrazing. Eucalyptus is the preferred habitat for native monarch butterfly overwintering congregations, and wild boar rooting increases plant diversity and fulfills the soil-stirring function formerly performed by grizzlies before they were hunted to extinction in California. In every case, without exception, "invasive" species are the direct result of human disturbance of the landscape, or a secondary ripple effect from other disturbance. They are a symptom of our abuses of the land, not the cause. Invasive alien hysteria is based on faulty, antiquated ecology - the idea of stable, coevolved ecosystems is now entirely discredited by modern ecosystem studies and paleobiology.
HERBICIDE MANUFACTURERS AND "LIFE PATENT" CORPORATIONS HAVE FUNDED
PROPAGANDA ABOUTR INVASIVE SPECIES
"...herbicide manufactures and "life patent" corporations have funded tremendous propaganda in recent years hyping a spurious "invasive species" threat to natural ecosystems in order to sell more herbicides. The USDA, when faced with large budget cuts in the mid 1990s, and needing new justification for its regulatory bureaucracy (protecting the nation from "foreign invaders"), joined in this propaganda effort. Other bureaucracies have joined and the National Invasive Species Council has been created. Park managers nationwide have found "weed extermination" projects a fertile source of funding (The Natural Areas Association for park and preserve managers had a Monsanto employee on its board of directors for some time), and academic biologists likewise have found that promoting the "invasive species threat" useful in their search for grant funding. Unfortunately, this industry-backed media sensationalism has been effective, and many otherwise fine environmental organizations have been misled into support of this "nature cleansing". Monsanto has also been instrumental in the formation of the Exotic Pest Plant Councils - pseudo-environmental front-groups promoting weed hysteria. A Monsanto employee was instrumental in the founding of The California Exotic Pest Plant Council, and was on its board of directors for years. CalEPPC has received major funding from them and other herbicide manufacturers..." Important video on Invasion Biology:
THIS IS AN AMAZING EPIPHANY TO LESLIE's JOURNEY
TO RESANCTIFY ARUNDO DONAX
David Theodoropoules speaks about Invasion Biology at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene OR, March 5th 2011. David I. Theodoropoulos directs the Las Sombras Biological Preserve in La Honda, CA and is the author of "Invasion Biology: Critique of a Pseudoscience, the first comprehensive refutation of invasion biology." His talk was titled "Invasion Biology -- Science or Pseudoscience?, a brief overview of invasion biology's scientific failings, and current scientific perspectives on invasive species."
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