Beleid en debat

Are people good? Is humankind basically benign? In our current belief system, which we might term liberal secular humanism, which has held sway in the West since the Second World War, and which promotes human progress and well-being, only one response is permitted: Yes, of course! Any suggestion that there might be something wrong with people as a whole, with Man as a species, is absolute anathema. But today, two circumstances come together to prompt me to pose the question once more. The first is the ending, this week, of my 15 years as Environment Editor of The Independent. It has been a privilege beyond measure to work for so long for a wonderful newspaper which has put the environment at the heart of its view of the world. We are proud of all we have done about it, from raising the question, in 2000, of the mysterious disappearance of the house sparrow from London and other major cities – we offered a £5,000 prize for a proper scientific explanation, but the mystery remains – to devoting the whole of the front page, in 2011, to the then hardly recognised threat of neonicotinoid insecticides, now an obsession around the globe. But there have been what you might call side effects. For if, over the past decade and a half, you have closely observed what is happening to the Earth, week in, week out, you may take a dark view of the future; and I do. The reason is that the Earth is under threat, as it has never been before, from the ever more oppressive scale of the human enterprise: from the activities of a world population which doubled from three to six billion in four short decades, between 1960 and 2000, and which, in the four decades to come, will probably increase by three billion more. These activities are now wiping out ecosystems and species, across the world, at an ever increasing rate: the forests are chainsawed; the oceans are stripmined of their fish; the rivers, especially in the developing world, are ever more polluted; the farmland is rendered sterile of all but the monoculture crop by demented dosing with pesticides; the farmland insects and wild flowers and many of the birds have gone.

The European Commission said, on 19 March, that it would refer its proposal for a ban on the use of three neonicotinoid insecticides (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam) on crops attractive to honeybees to the Appeal Committee after an inconclusive vote in the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health last week (see Europolitics4608). Announcing the Commission’s decision at the Agriculture Council, Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner Tonio Borg pledged to do his utmost to “find solutions that command the widest possible support”. “The health of our bees is of paramount importance – we have a duty to take proportionate yet decisive action to protect them wherever appropriate,” he added, reiterating his determination to receive qualified majority support at the Appeal Committee for his proposal. “The Commission still envisages to have measures in place by 1 July 2013,” Borg’s services said in a separate statement. No date of the vote in the Appeal Committee was given at this stage.

Insgesamt 275 Vereinsmitglieder und Gäste (neuer Rekord seit Altenburg 2007!) fanden sich am vergangenen Wochenende (22-24. März 2013) zur 51. Jahresversammlung und Sächsischen Ornithologentagung des Vereins Sächsischer Ornithologen in der westsächsischen Kleinstadt Hohenstein-Ernstthal ein, wo das „Schützenhaus“ beste Tagungsbedingungen bot. Höhepunkt im wissenschaftlichen Vortragsprogramm am Sonnabend war mit Sicherheit der Vortrag des niederländischen Toxikologen und Krebsforschers Dr. Henk Tennekes, der über neuartige Pestizide in der Landwirtschaft und deren katastrophalen Folgen auf die Nahrungskette in der Natur sprach. Viele Zuhörer zeigten sich nach diesen Ausführungen betroffen, ja geschockt und forderten eine Reaktion vom Verein. Wie daher zur Mitgliederversammlung beschlossen, wird der VSO eine entsprechende Petition an die Bundesregierung und die EU richten.

As part of a study on impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments and for the suspension of all applications pending an independent review of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife. “It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer, co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations. ABC commissioned world renowned environmental toxicologist Dr. Pierre Mineau to conduct the research. The 100-page report (attached), “The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds,” reviews 200 studies on neonicotinoids including industry research obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act. The report evaluates the toxicological risk to birds and aquatic systems and includes extensive comparisons with the older pesticides that the neonicotinoids have replaced. The assessment concludes that the neonicotinoids are lethal to birds and to the aquatic systems on which they depend.

In the past decade, many studies have implicated a class of pesticides known as “neonicotinoids” in the declines of pollinator populations, including bumble bees and honey bees. The toxic impact that these chemicals may be having on bees and other insects has brought them the most attention recently, and rightly so; one-third of the U.S. diet depends on pollinator services and they contribute over $15 billion to the U.S. agricultural economy. Pollinator losses represent a serious threat to the agricultural industry and our nation’s food security. First introduced in the 1990s in response to widespread pest resistance as well as public health objections to older pesticides, the neonicotinoid class of insecticides are now the most widely used insecticides in the world; it is difficult to find pest control commodities that do not contain one or several of these chemicals. The environmental persistence of neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative effects on invertebrates raise environmental concerns that go well beyond bees. A new American Bird Conservancy commissioned report by toxicologist Pierre Mineau reviews the effects on avian species and on the aquatic systems on which they depend. Larger ecosystem impacts and the relationship between neonicotinoids and alarming declines of birds, bees, and other organisms will be addressed.

Die EU plant derzeit ein europaweites Verbot von Pestiziden, die auf der Basis von Nikotiniden enstehen, also Stoffen, die mit dem Nervengift Nikotin verwand sind. Der ungarische Landwirtschaftsminister, Sándor Fazekas, erklärte nun, dass Ungarn gegen ein Verbot dieser Mittel ist, angeblich sei es "schwer, diese Mittel zu ersetzen", die "nötig sind, um die Saat zu schützen". Zwar kenne er die Probleme "westlicher Bienenzüchter, aber "wir haben solche Probleme nicht." Außerdem sehe er keinen "überprüfbaren Zusammenhang" zwischen diesen Chemikalien und dem Bienensterben. Ohne diese Art von Pestiziden, meint der Minister, sei "eine sichere Produktion" nicht möglich.

Bis zum 28. Mai ist die Sonderausstellung "Fliegen, Singen, Brüten, Tauchen" im Museum für Naturkunde zu sehen. Sie wurde gemeinsam mit dem langjährigen Leiter des Botanischen Gartens Chemnitz, Ulrich Schuster, entwickelt und führt den Besucher durch die Vielfalt und Besonderheit der Vogelwelt Europas, Australiens, Afrikas und Amerikas. "Immer wenn ich auf Urlaubsreisen war, habe ich meine Kamera gezückt und die schönsten Vogel-Motive festgehalten", erzählt Schuster. Bereits als Zwölfjähriger nahm er an Vogelbeobachtungen teil. Als Lehrer für Biologie begleitete ihn die Ornithologie auch im Berufsleben. Ab 1976 war Ulrich Schuster pädagogischer Mitarbeiter in der Station Junger Naturforscher. Er erarbeitete in den Achtzigern ein nachhaltiges Konzept für einen Botanischen Garten der Stadt Chemnitz, welches am 5. Oktober 1989 realisiert wurde. Wenn Ulrich Schuster heute auf die Vogelwelt in Deutschland und speziell in Sachsen schaut, sieht er nichts Gutes. "Dadurch, dass in der Landwirtschaft immer mehr mit Chemie gearbeitet wird und die Insekten damit vernichtet werden, finden die Vögel nichts mehr zu fressen und sterben aus", sagt er. Der Kiebitz und das Rebhuhn seien bereits extrem selten geworden.