Hi my name is Bert de Groef and I'm one of the team of scientists working here at La Trobe University.
We all know that
fruit is an essential part of a well-balanced diet.
Apples and pears are excellent sources of vitamins and fiber that keep is healthy.
But there's another side of the coin.
Farmers use a variety of pesticides to protect their fruit against pest insects
and ultimately those chemicals end up in our environment like our waters our streams,
our creeks, and not only is this where our drinking water is coming from it's also
home to a bunch of animals like fish and frogs
Worldwide, about one in three species of amphibian is threatened with extinction
and water pollution is an important contributing factor
For example,this frog in his relatives live in a small creek in southern Australia.
He struggles to survive.  You can change the life of this frog
and thousands like him, and we can tell you how.
It's really important that we test these
pesticides not just for general toxicity
but also for the more subtle effects on
development and reproduction which may
not kill wildlife but may cause diseases.
We'd like to test a common insecticide which is widely used in Australia, the US and developing countries
which has never been tested for hormone disruption before.
We will use a state-of-the-art and very sensitive test
developed by our collaborators in France
It uses frogs that are engineered to glow when they are exposed to hormone- disrupting chemicals
You basically scan frogs exposed to different concentrations of
the pesticide, and the more the frogs
glow, the more their hormone balance is
disrupted by the chemical.
The best possible
outcome would be that this insecticide
doesn't do anything at all but if it
does then these experiments will provide
us with good solid evidence that we can
then take the policymakers and say "look
you've really got to do something about
this" .
We need to find sustainable alternatives for the farmers to protect their crops
We really appreciate your help in making this happen. We cannot do this without you.
Your generous health will help give a voice to these frogs and to the environment
in which they live. Thank you so much.
