MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2008

Canadian activist in Hollywood to stop flower corporations from destroying Lake Naivasha for Valentine's Day sales

Canadian water activist Maude Barlow, will be joining environmental experts and activists from the U.S., Europe and Kenya  to launch a report highlighting the destructive practices of flower farms on Lake Naivasha in Kenya.

The report, Lake Naivasha: Withering Under the Assault of International Flower Vendors points to the devastating environmental and social impacts of international flower industry in Kenya.

“The farms surround Lake Naivasha. They deplete its waters and poison them with pesticides,” said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “They are sowing the seeds of economic and environmental devastation that, unless stopped, inevitably will yield a harvest of poverty, water deprivation, and violence.

According to Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of U.S.-based Food & Water Watch flower corporations and the international media now regard the violence in Kenya as an investment loss. “Our solidarity and support should go to the people in the region, not the international corporate owners of these flower farms,” says Hauter.

“Factory flower farms have wreaked havoc on Kenya’s rivers and on Lake Naivasha, all to extract floricultural and horticultural commodities for export to wealthy destinations in Europe and elsewhere,” said Olivier Hoedeman of Corporate Europe Observatory. “Europeans don’t want to say ‘I love you’ with flowers that cause that kind of harm.”

“These flower farms are harming people and animals alike,” explained Josphat Ngonyo, director of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare. “Numerous bird and fish species are disappearing from the area and that’s a problem for the environment and the people who depend on the lake.” Plant life has vanished, and the local hippopotamus population has decreased from 1,500 in 2004 to 1,100 in 2006.

Barlow and Hauter witnessed the destruction first-hand when they visited a local flower farm in Kenya in January 2007. The report on Lake Naivasha prepared by Food & Water Watch and the Council of Canadians will be launched at the Wiltshire Restaurant in Santa Monica at 11AM Thursday. Click here to view the report.

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For more information, please contact:
Meera Karunananthan Media Officer: Tel.: (613) 233-4487, ext. 234; Cell: (613) 795-8685;.