Ducks Unlimited and CropLife America Partnership Results in Herbicide to Enhance Coastal Wetlands and Establish Native Prairie Habitat in Michigan

Monsanto AquaMaster® Herbicide and Roundup Pro® Herbicide to Improve Waterfowl Habitat

Ann Arbor, MI – July 13, 2006 — Monsanto Company, a CropLife America member company, recently donated more than $22,000 of AquaMaster® herbicide and Roundup Pro® herbicide to Ducks Unlimited (DU) to improve Michigan wetlands. DU will use the AquaMaster® to control invasive phragmites in coastal marshes associated with Saginaw Bay, Lake St. Clair and western Lake Erie. The Roundup Pro® will facilitate the establishment of native prairie on private lands in southeast Michigan.

This is the second time such a donation has been made. In 2005, Monsanto Company donated more than $40,000 of AquaMaster® herbicide that DU has used to control phragmites and restore native plant communities in coastal wetlands at St. Clair Flats Wildlife Area on Lake St. Clair and at The Nature Conservancy’s Erie Marsh Preserve in Monroe County.

CropLife America and DU are partnering on a national level in a novel Wildlife Conservation-Technology Initiative. The goal of this five-year initiative is to expand the use of plant science technology in the restoration and management of habitat for the benefit of North American waterfowl and other wildlife. By contributing herbicides, fungicides and technical assistance, the member companies of CropLife America are working with DU to manage invasive weeds and enhance natural habitat in key waterfowl landscapes across the U.S.

Invasive species have decreased the quality of habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife in both wetlands and associated uplands. Although a native variety of phragmites exists in Michigan, the more aggressive and highly invasive variety from Europe began colonizing Great Lakes coastal marshes in the 1980s. Over time and more recently facilitated by lower Great Lakes water levels, phragmites has invaded most coastal marshes. Once established, phragmites quickly grows into dense, monotypic stands that displace more beneficial native vegetation, resulting in wetlands that have very little to offer in terms of wildlife habitat. “These phragmites monocultures displaced high quality native wetland plants that used to provide a haven for a variety of wetland wildlife.

DU will work with our conservation partners in Michigan and use this donated herbicide to control phragmites in more than 1,000 acres of Great Lakes coastal marsh, which will allow beneficial wetland plants, like cattail and bulrush, to reestablish and provide quality habitat for a diversity of fish and wildlife,” stated Russel Terry, Ducks Unlimited Regional Biologist.

Established in 1933, CropLife America represents the developers, manufacturers, formulators and distributors of plant science solutions for agriculture and pest management in the United States.

With more than one million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest wetland and waterfowl conservation organization. Since its founding in 1937, DU has raised more than $1.5 billion and conserved nearly 11 million acres of critical wildlife habitat across North America. Wetlands are nature’s most productive ecosystems, but the United States has lost more than half of its original wetlands and continues to lose more than 80,000 wetland acres every year.

xxx