Golf and the Environment
Beyond
Pesticides' work on golf and the environment continues to be an important
strategy for outreach to the land area with one of the most highly concentrated
per acre use of pesticides. The extensive use of pesticides on golf courses
raises serious questions about people's toxic exposure, drift over neighboring
communities, water contamination, and effects on wildlife and sensitive
ecosystems.
Selected resources and activist tools:
- Environmental Principles for Golf and the Environment.
- Lawns and Landscapes webpage: Hazards and alternatives.
- Organic turf management: 8 Steps to a Toxic-Free Lawn.
- Health Effects of 30 Commonly Used Lawn & Golf Course Pesticides.
- Environmental Effects of 30 Commonly Used Lawn & Golf Course Pesticides.
- Detailed information on common golf course pesticides: 2,4-D, bensulide, chlorothalonil, DCPA, dicamba, maneb, mecoprop, thiram, trichlorfon, ziram.
- More: Studies, alternatives, news and other resources.
Golf
Digest: How Green Is Golf?
In what it calls the most important article it has ever published, Golf
Digest in its May 2008 issue published an article, "How
Green
is Golf?," which asks the hard questions about the environmental
impact of golf in a series of in-depth interviews, including a builder,
golf course superintendent, regulator, environmentalist and activist -
Beyond Pesticides executive director, Jay Feldman (read the
interview). Read
about this article on Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog, "Experts
Discuss the Greening of Golf Courses."
Principles
for Golf and the Environment
Beyond Pesticides also serves on a steering committee that seeks to develop
a collaborative strategy with the golf course industry in an effort to
effect change. This group developed the Environmental
Principles for Golf Courses in the U.S. Increasingly, players and
golf course managers are asking the right questions and looking for answers
that result in meaningful reductions in pesticide use.