SIGN OUR PETITION
If you're a resident in Cambridge or Cambridgeshire, we'd be grateful if you could sign our petition to Cambridge City Council and share widely if you haven't done so already. https://www.change.org/p/cambridge-city-council-make-cambridge-pesticide-free
We need 500 local signatures in order for our demands to be discussed in a council meeting. Our demands to the council are as follows:
Commit to phasing out all synthetic, non-agricultural pesticides - including both herbicides and insecticides- in all areas that they are responsible for managing, within three years.
Trial non-toxic alternatives to weed management this year (2021) on pathways, roads, pavements and street infrastructure (lampposts, trees, benches etc) that it manages on the behalf of Cambridgeshire County Council, and to establish constructive dialogue with the latter in order to make Cambridge pesticide-free.
Establish a communications campaign, by the end of 2021 in liaison with partners across the city, including Pesticide-Free Cambridge, to encourage stakeholders, schools, business owners and members of the public to phase out and ultimately end pesticide use in the City of Cambridge.
We feel that 'public education' and the need for the council to play a role in shifting attitudes about the role of 'nature' in towns is key here, hence our emphasis on the council's duty to run awareness building campaigns that fit with their 2019 declaration of a biodiversity crisis.