The Alliance for a Better Quality of Life has asked Chile's President Michelle Bachelet to give urgent status to a bill that bans the storage, transport and sale of pesticides of 1A (highly dangerous) and 1B (very dangerous) pesticides. “In September we requested a presidential hearing, but we have not yet received a reply. We are racing with time because between October and March is when most poisonings and deaths from agro-toxins occur,” Lucía Sepúlveda, of the Alliance, which is part of the Latin American Pesticide Action Network (RAP-AL), told Tierramérica.

Between January and July 2007, there were 373 acute poisonings from pesticides reported. Seven people died.

Although the original draft of the bill presented by eight lawmakers has been weakened, it remains an important step forward, according to Sepúlveda.