United States and United Nations pesticide policies: Environmental violence against the Yaqui indigenous nation

The United States (U.S.) allows the production and export of pesticides to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), even when those pesticides have been banned domestically due to their known detrimental health impacts.¹ Export data from U.S. ports found that over 27 million pounds of pesticides forbidden for use domestically were shipped at an average of 32 thousand pounds per day.¹ In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that banned pesticides were being produced in 23 U.S. states.^2,3 Many pesticides still widely used in the USA, have been banned or are being phased out in the EU, China, and Brazil. For decades, these pesticides have been exported to other countries, where they have been associated with significant adverse health effects on Indigenous Peoples, such as the Yaqui Nation of Sonora, Mexico.

 

Today, the export of domestically banned pesticides to other countries remains legal under U.S. laws and United Nations (UN) conventions, namely the U.S. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), and the UN Rotterdam Convention.