Trump’s Interior Department Reverses Ban of Pesticides in Wildlife Refuges

Recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revoked a 2014 ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, commonly called neonics, in national wildlife refuges. This decision flies in the face of recent research that has linked this particular class of pesticides to harmful effects on bees and other pollinators and, according to environmental watchdogs, contradicts the very purpose of the national wildlife system.

"This continues a theme in our current administration for building up our public lands for private interest," said Hannah Connor, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "There's no way that the withdrawal of this policy was done for wildlife and wildlife conservation, which is the purpose of the wildlife system. It was done for private operators on public lands."