Beleid en debat

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to protect a vanishing California songbird by listing it as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but a national bird protection group says that doesn't go far enough. The Washington D.C.-based American Bird Conservancy (ABC) says that USFWS should give the western yellow-billed cuckoo full Endangered status, which would give the bird greater protection. A subspecies of the far more widespread yellow-billed cuckoo, the western yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus occidentalis), has seen between 90 and 99 percent of its preferred riparian forest habitat destroyed in California. Fewer than 500 breeding pairs of the birds remain in the United States. USFWS proposed the western yellow-billed for listing as Threatened in October, as part of a 2011 agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity to rule on listing proposals for 757 imperiled species. ABC made its recommendation for greater protection in a December 2 letter that the group made public December 6.

This letter is in response to Julee Boan’s excellent article about Ontario’s Endangered Species Act (Paying the Interest, Ignoring the Debt — CJ, Nov. 29). This act is extremely important and we ignore it at our peril. In towns and cities we have animal humane societies that ensure that the animals under our care in our homes are given the best protection we can offer. The animals, fish and insects in our wilderness are no less deserving. The act should be their voice to protect them from the harmful impacts of mining, fossil-fuel extraction, forestry, fishing and farming, not for the protection of these same industries. These impacts are real and can be devastating. Two examples from farming have come to my attention lately. Both were preventable.

Increasing and widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides all over the world, together with their environmental persistence mean that surface and ground waters need to be monitored regularly for their residues. However, current multi-residue analytical methods for waters are inadequate for trace residue analysis of these compounds, while passive sampling devices are unavailable. A new method using Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography provided good separation of the five most common neonicotinoid compounds, with limits of quantitation in the range 0.6–1.0 ng. The method was tested in a survey of rivers around Sydney (Australia), where 93% of samples contained two or more neonicotinoids in the range 0.06–4.5 lg L1. Styrenedivinylbenzene-reverse phase sulfonated Empore™ disks were selected as the best matrix for use in passive samplers. Uptake of clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiacloprid in a flowthrough laboratory system for 3 weeks was linear and proportional to their water concentrations over the range 1–10 lg L1. Sampling rates of 8–15 mL d1 were correlated to the hydrophobicity of the individual compounds. The passive samplers and analytical methods presented here can detect trace concentrations of neonicotinoids in water.

Un estudio reciente evidenció que las células neuronales tratadas con el herbicida glifosato muestran un desarrollo más lento. Estas células fueron obtenidas del cerebro de embriones de ratas en un estudio in vitro, según divulgación de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Las investigaciones se realizaron en vivo con animales que se expusieron al herbicida e in vitro directamente con las neuronas del cerebro de embriones de ratas, los cuales se trataron con diferentes dosis, que están por debajo de la graduación a la que se expone el ser humano en los espacios donde se aplica el herbicida. El análisis de los resultados arrojó que el glifosato en las dosis estudiadas no produce letalidad, sin embargo las células se desarrollan mucho más lentamente. "Una neurona que tiene cuatro días, morfológicamente es una neurona de uno o dos días”, señaló en un comunicado Silvana Rosso, investigadora adjunta de CONICET y docente del Área Toxicología de la Facultad de Cs. Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR).

Die intensive Landwirtschaft verantwortet einen dramatischen Artenrückgang. Nach einer Studie der Europäischen Umweltagentur, ist in den letzten 20 Jahren der Bestand an Wiesenschmetterlingen um rund 50 Prozent zurückgegangen. Landwirtschaftliche Monokulturen und starker Pestizideinsatz zerstören demnach Europaweit den Lebensraum der Schmetterlinge. „Wir brauchen eine Landwirtschaft, die Artenvielfalt in unsere Obst- und Weinanlagen, Äcker und Wiesen zurück bringt, und das ist das Ziel unserer Naturschutz-Beratung,“ sagt Bioland-Obmann Michael Oberhollenzer. „Die Biologische Bewirtschaftung der Betriebe ist der grundlegende Schritt, um die Südtiroler Natur zu schützen. Wir Bioland-Bauern gehen noch weiter, indem wir zusätzlich aktive Naturschutzmaßnahmen am Betrieb treffen.“ Von den rund 600 als gefährdet eingestuften Pflanzenarten Südtirols sind 41 Prozent durch die intensive Landwirtschaft gefährdet. Neben Pflanzen feuchter Standorte sind typische Wiesenarten von Standorten mit geringem bis mittlerem Nährstoffgehalt besonders betroffen.

Three of the 15 bumble bee species found in Vermont are thought to be extinct and at least one other species is in decline. Bumble bees pollinate crops such as apples, blueberries and tomatoes, making them critical to Vermont’s agricultural economy. Sara Zahendra, a field biologist with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, says losing native bumble bees is cause for serious concern. “There’s a lot that’s bad about losing native bumble bees,” she said. “One of the main things is that they are far and away the best pollinators of tomatoes. Where there aren’t a lot of native bumble bees, people have to hand-pollinate, which is incredibly expensive.” Native bumble bees are more important than honeybees for crop pollination. Leif Richardson, an entomologist at Dartmouth College, said in a VCE news release that “Wild bees perform the majority of all pollination on Vermont farms, whether or not the managed honeybee is present.” “As an ecosystem service, pollination is worth millions annually,” Richardson continued. “But we don’t know how the loss of native bee species will affect our food supply or overall environmental health.”

Le moratoire annoncé par le commissaire européen Borg du printemps dernier ciblait trois famille de néonicotinoïde, permettant d'exclure notamment l'insecticide de marque "Cruiser" pour la protection des maïs et colza. Les abeilles devaient être "tranquilles" pour deux ans. Or, comme la décision de la Commission ne porte que sur trois familles de néonicotinoïde, le groupe Bayer a trouvé la parade en commercialisant massivement l'insecticide "Sonido" – contenant la molécule thiaclopride – dont la commission environnement au Parlement européen dans un avis de 2011 sur la santé des abeilles qui avait alerté sur les dangers de cette molécule pour les abeilles. Des estimations évaluent à 800.000 hectares en France de cultures traitées en 2014 avec ce produit, menaçant gravement les abeilles et donc l'ensemble de l'écosystème.