The Government must introduce a precautionary moratorium on three pesticides linked to the decline of pollinators - imidacloprid, clothianidin and TMX – that suspends their use on flowering crops attractive to pollinators, Parliament’s cross-party green watchdog has said. Environmental Audit Committee Chair, Joan Walley MP, commented: “Defra seems to be taking an extraordinarily complacent approach to protecting bees given the vital free service that pollinators provide to our economy. If farmers had to pollinate fruit and vegetables without the help of insects it would cost hundreds of millions of pounds and we would all be stung by rising food prices. Defra Ministers have refused to back EU efforts to protect pollinators and can’t even come up with a convincing plan to encourage bee-friendly farming in the UK.” Two-thirds of wild insect pollinator species - such as bumblebees, hoverflies, butterflies, carrion flies, beetles, midges and moths - have suffered population declines in the UK. Managed honeybees have also experienced unusually high mortality rates, decreased fertility, increased susceptibility to disease and the loss of hives. Similar trends have been observed in the US and other European countries.
Disease, habitat loss and climate change can all affect insect populations, but a growing body of peer-reviewed research suggests that the use of one group of insecticides is having an especially damaging impact on pollinators — neonicotinoids. Applied to seeds, these systemic pesticides are widely used in the UK on oilseed rape, cereals, maize, sugar beet and crops grown in glasshouses.
Joan Walley MP said:
“We believe that the weight of scientific evidence now warrants precautionary action, so we are calling for a moratorium on pesticides linked to bee decline to be introduced by 1 January next year. This allows farmers to use treated seeds that have already been purchased for this growing season and gives Defra time to implement EU legislation on the sustainable use of pesticides.”
Authorities in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia have already suspended the use of some neonicotinoids in certain circumstances. The European Commission has also proposed an EU-wide moratorium on the use of imidacloprid, clothianidin and TMX on crops attractive to bees, following a recent risk warning from the European Food Safety Authority. The UK has refused to take domestic action or to support the EU proposal.
Many of the UK's largest garden retailers, including B&Q, Wickes and Homebase, have voluntarily withdrawn non-professional plant protection products that contain neonicotinoids. The report recommends a full ban on the sale of neonicotinoids for public domestic use in order to create an urban safe haven for pollinators.
Joan Walley MP said:
“The Government should follow the UK’s leading garden retailers in recognising that action needs to be taken to save our bees. There is no justification for people continuing to use these products on their Dahlias when they could be having a detrimental effect on pollinator populations. Banning the sale of neonicotinoids for domestic use would at least create an urban safe haven for bees.”
Pesticide manufacturers often claim that studies linking their products to bee decline are flawed or inconclusive and that other factors are primarily to blame, such as the Varroa mite. But although the agrochemical industry has produced many studies on the environmental effect of pesticides, it keeps most of its data secret on grounds of commercial confidentiality.
The report warns that this lack of transparency is preventing a fuller understanding of the problem. The MPs call on the industry to place the results of its trials and studies in the public domain so that they can be subjected to open academic scrutiny. Defra should help companies establish which genuinely commercially sensitive details need to be redacted to make this possible.
Joan Walley MP added:
“Pesticide companies often try to pick holes in studies linking their products to bee decline, but when pushed to publish their own research and safety studies they hide behind claims of commercial sensitivity. The industry must open itself to greater academic scrutiny if it wants to justify its continued opposition to the precautionary protection of pollinators.”
The Government's National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides published earlier this year was a missed opportunity, according to the Committee. Clearer targets are needed to reduce reliance on pesticides as far as possible. And Integrated Pest Management – which emphasizes alternatives to pesticides, but does not preclude their use – should be made the central principle of the plan.
Joan Walley MP concluded:
“More research is needed to monitor pollinator populations and establish the impact that particular pesticides are having, but Defra must not use this as an excuse to avoid urgent precautionary action.”
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Committee Membership is as follows:
Chair: Joan Walley, MP
Peter Aldous MP Chris Evans MP Dr Matthew Offord MP
Richard Benyon MP* Zac Goldsmith MP Mr Mark Spencer MP
Neil Carmichael MP Mark Lazarowicz MP Paul Uppal MP
Martin Caton MP Caroline Lucas MP Dr Alan Whitehead MP
Katy Clark MP Caroline Nokes MP Simon Wright MP
* The Minister for the Environment has membership of the Committee in like manner to the Financial Secretary’s membership of the Committee of Public Accounts.
Specific Committee Information: eacom@parliament.uk/ 020 7219 5776/ 020 7219 6150
Media Information: Nick Davies daviesnick@parliament.uk/ 020 7219 3297
Committee Website: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-sel…
Watch committees and parliamentary debates online: www.parliamentlive.tv
Publications / Reports / Reference Material: Copies of all select committee reports are available from the Parliamentary Shop (12 Bridge St, Westminster, 020 7219 3890) or the Stationery Office (0845 7023474). Committee reports, press releases, evidence transcripts, Bills; research papers, a directory of MPs, plus Hansard (from 8am daily) and much more, can be found on www.parliament.uk
Defra's Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Ian Boyd talks about neonicotinoids in light of the most recent studies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYas4fTWm04
Source:
Environmental Audit Committee media release, 5 April 2013
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The difference between toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics
In written evidence submitted by Dr James Cresswell, University of Exeter, it is stated: "Assertions that the effects of neonicotinoids on bees are irreversible (eg Tennekes & Sanchez-Bayo 2011) are false (very certain). In the case of imidacloprid, adult honey bees rapidly detoxify the neonicotinoid (very certain; Suchail et al. 2004; Cresswell et al. unpublished). Bumble bees are less able to clear ingested imidacloprid (very certain; Cresswell et al. unpublished) but the residues are rapidly cleared once the diet is clean and toxic effects are rapidly reversible within a few days (very certain; Laycock, Smith & Cresswell, unpublished)."
It is apparent that Dr Cresswell does not know the difference between toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics. With an irreversible mechanism of action, adverse effects may appear long after the compound has been eliminated from the organism. The observation that toxic effects appear rapidly reversible does not imply that no neurons were irreversibly damaged. It simply means that the nervous system appeared to be able - for the moment - to cope with the damage that was caused. Similar observations can be made after a stroke. A stroke causes irreversible damage to neurons and a loss of neurons, but surviving neurons may adopt functions of the neurons that did not survive. So, the patient may appear to have made a full recovery. However, the conclusion that the stroke caused no irreversible damage to the nervous system because the patient recovered would certainly be incorrect. Dr Cresswell draws conclusions that are not warranted. In any case, the dose:reponse relationship describing the toxicity of imidacloprid or thiacloprid to honey bees is a Druckrey-Küpfmüller equation (first validated for genotoxic carcinogens in the early 1960s). The implication is an unacceptable risk to honeybees. 1 ppb of imidacloprid in nectar or pollen will kill bees within a week.
We love our bees, but we must save the pesticides that kill them
The UK Parliamentary inquiry into pollinators and pesticides reinforces the EU proposal to ban the neonicotinoid pesticides, which have killed billions of bees. MPs have called for their use to be banned on crops by January 2014 and for an immediate ban on gardens, golf courses, parks and garden centres.
The EU ban is supported by the EU Parliament and European Food Safety Authority, as well as the governments of France, Holland, Spain, Italy and Poland.
It is supported here by Buglife, Friends of the Bees, Pesticide Action Network, Friends of the Earth, the RSPB, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, the Soil Association and the Women’s Institute. More than 2.5 million people have signed the Avaaz petition.
Tragically, the British Bee Keepers Association, the Scottish Beekeepers Association and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust have sided with Bayer and Syngenta, to defend these poisons. Orwell’s Ministry of Truth would award them medals for the finest examples of “double-think” since 1984 – “We love our bees, but we must save the pesticides that kill them!”
Members of these charities face a dilemma: do they join the fight to ban these deadly poisons, or continue to serve the interests of the pesticide companies, until every last honeybee, bumblebee, butterfly and bird is dead, or survives only in a glass cabinet?
These charities have lost all credibility as conservation bodies. Their policies suggest they have been co-opted or infiltrated by the pesticide lobbyists, gutted of their principles, and given a nice coat of “greenwash”, as camouflage for Syngenta, Bayer and the National Farmers’ Union.
Graham White
Friends of the Bees
Coldstream
Source: Scotsman, 6 April 2013
http://www.scotsman.com/news/letters/keep-the-bees-1-2880354