Vlinders

Most of us would not like to think we might be implicated in the decline of honeybees worldwide, or in the decreasing numbers of bumblebees, butterflies and farmland birds nearer home, but two scientific papers published at the end of last month suggest we are. The scientists’ findings about the effect of the latest generation of pesticides on bees and other pollinators mean we should all re-examine what we buy. For someone who, as concern has grown, has tried to keep a sense of proportion about the possible effects of a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids — nicotine-like substances that were introduced in the 1990s
— the sense of betrayal runs deep. I expect multinational pesticide companies to play down evidence they don’t like and to play up the importance of pesticides when it comes to feeding the world. I don’t expect the people we pay to protect our environment to operate complacently on the same assumptions. What we are talking about is nothing less than the poisoning of the countryside on a scale greater than Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring, her classic exposure of the first generation of synthetic pesticides. Three million acres of Britain are treated with the new pesticides. Their true effects were missed by regulators despite the erection, under the European Union, of the greatest edifice of environmental legislation yet. No wonder an English scientist quoted in the normally cautious journal Science predicts that these two scientific papers will cause “an absolute firestorm”. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation recently published a review of research into the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees, with recommendations for action (attached). Attached also is an article on the influence of Bayer Cropscience on Dutch policy makers (which appeared the magazine "Vrij Nederland" on April 4, 2012).

Dear Tom Vilsac,
I am writing you as a scientist and as an agribusiness-man who has used both aldicarb and neonicotinoid systemic insecticides commercially and who has suffered losses of honey bees foraging on treated crops. I have had personal experience using systemic insecticides on a commercial scale having been the owner of several agricultural businesses in the Northeast USA.

In the 1990's on two separate occasions I witnessed complete colony collapse of my bees. The first incident losing over a half a million bees that foraged on two acres of potted perennials which were treated with Imidacloprid. The second time I lost several hives to a neighbors 'Grubex' 1 control treated clover lawn. After seeing the total collapse of the hives we stopped using Imidacloprid and all other systemic pesticides. I no longer use any pesticides, or biocides and now practice sustainable organic methods of agriculture.

Dear Editor,
Sir Robert Watson, chief scientist at the Department of the Environment (Defra), has acted bravely in ordering a reassessment of the licensing of neonicotinoid pesticides in the UK.
Watson faces an uphill struggle; Defra, its Food and Environment Research Agency and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides have all resolutely ignored the many peer-reviewed studies from Europe, from as long ago as 1999, which proved the extreme toxicity of neoniocotinoids for honeybees, bumblebees and butterflies.
The wildlife NGOs are similarly in denial. With the honourable exception of Buglife, all have stood by silently as bees, pollinating insects, soil-invertebrates and farmland birds are wiped from the face of Britain's countryside.
Painful as it may be for Defra, the ACP and the leading wildlife bodies to admit that they got this wrong, they must call for a complete ban on these poisons now, or we will suffer complete ecological disaster in this country.

An extended radio interview with Tom Theobald about three new studies that have recently been published regarding the ways that neonicotinoids harm bees. The studies include one from Purdue, and two from Europe, and all three indicate that these new pesticides are causing more harm to bees than previously thought. Tom Theobald is the Colorado bee-farmer who uncovered the duplicity of the American EPA - in licensing Clothianidin against the official judgement of their own scientific officers. Listen to the interview: http://howonearthradio.org/archives/1807

„Leider sind bei uns am Niederrhein manche Tier- und Pflanzenarten gefährdet oder ausgestorben“, bedauert Biologe Ansgar Reichmann. "Autofahrer müssten eigentlich sofort merken, was sich verändert hat“, meint Reichmann. Wenn der Leiter der Biologischen Station Krickenbecker Seen durchs Tal der Narew in Polen fährt, hat er „ruckzuck die Windschutzscheibe voller Insekten“. Anders als noch vor ein paar Jahrzehnten könne man aber am Niederrhein in der warmen Jahreszeit stundenlang fahren und habe „nur ein paar Mücken und Fliegen auf der Scheibe“. Und genau das sei ein „Merkmal für den Rückgang der Artenvielfalt“. Als typisches Beispiel gilt unter Biologen das Lammkraut, auch Lämmersalat genannt: Früher auf hiesigen Äckern heimisch, lockte das Kraut Insekten wie Schmetterlinge an, von denen sich Vögel wie der Neuntöter Lanius collurio ernährten. „Durch intensive Landwirtschaft ohne Hecken ist der Lämmersalat nahezu verschwunden, in der Folge auch manche Insekten- und Vogelart, so der Neuntöter“, bilanziert Reichmann. „Manchmal lässt sich gegensteuern, indem wir Schutznahmen für Naturräume einrichten, auch mit den Niederländern zusammen.“ So sei im Naturschutzgebiet Lüsekamp ein Vogel beobachtet worden, der viele Jahre hier als ausgestorben galt: der Neuntöter, der seine Beute, etwa große Insekten, auf Dornen aufspießt. Reichmann: „An einem extensiv bewirtschafteten Ackerprojekt mit Hecken wächst wieder der Lämmersalat, viele Insektenarten sind zurückgekommen und schließlich auch der Neuntöter.“

The Department of the Environment has issued a Red List of Irish Butterflies 2010 which details species under threat. All 33 resident and regular migrant species of Irish butterflies are evaluated for their conservation status using the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) regional criteria. The Red List assessment was compiled using best expert opinion and data from a number of specialist organisations. Apart from the 18% of butterflies under threat of total wipeout, a further 15% are near threatened. One species, Mountain Ringlet Erebia epiphron, is extinct, six species are endangered or vulnerable and five species are near threatened.