Save bees, ban toxic pesticides, EU urged
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EUROPE should expand a ban on bee-harming pesticides, ecological lobby group Greenpeace said yesterday, as it released a report warning of widespread risks to agriculture and the environment.
The report by biologists at the University of Sussex, commissioned by Greenpeace, concluded that the threat posed to bees by neonicotinoid pesticides was greater than perceived in 2013 when the European Union adopted a partial ban.
“New research strengthens arguments for the imposition of a moratorium” on the use of three neonicotinoids — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, the analysis concluded.
“It has become evident that they pose significant risks to many... organisms, not just bees.”
A global review last November said about 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops depend on pollinators, mainly bees. There are some 20,000 species of bees responsible for fertilizing more than 90 percent of the world’s 107 major crops.
Last year, the United Nations said 40 percent of invertebrate pollinators — specially bees and butterflies — risk global extinction.
Bee populations have been hit in Europe, North America and elsewhere by a mysterious phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder.” The blight has been blamed on mites, a virus or fungus, pesticides, or a combination of factors.
“These essential insects are in serious trouble,” Greenpeace wrote in a foreword to the report, which its authors said involved analyzing hundreds of scientific studies published since 2013.
“The case that neonicotinoids are contributing to wild bee declines and exacerbating honeybee health issues is stronger than it was when the partial EU ban as adopted,” said co-author Dave Goulson in a statement.
Neonicotinoids appeared also to be linked to declines of butterflies, birds and aquatic insects, he added.
Neonicotinoids are lab-synthesized pesticides based on the chemical structure of nicotine. They were introduced in the mid-1990s as a less harmful substitute to older versions. They are now widely used to treat flowering crops, and are designed to be absorbed by the growing plant and attack the nervous system of insect pests.
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