Insecticides

There's new evidence that a widely used family of pesticides called neonicotinoids, already controversial because they can be harmful to pollinators, could be risky for insects and fish that live in water, too. The evidence comes from Lake Shinji, which lies near Japan's coast, next to the Sea of Japan.

Throughout the 1900s, North America’s littlest falcon was also described as the continent’s most common and widespread. Small but fierce and marked with bright plumage rare in the raptor world, the American kestrel (Falco sparverius) could be seen throughout the continent, diving and swooping in fallow fields or under the stadium lights at baseball games, hunting for plump moths or small mice. In the Montreal area, they lived in the suburbs, in places like Vaudreuil-Dorion and Île-Perrot, drawn by unused fields and abundant food.

Recent studies have shown a dramatic decline in the bee population – with a nearly 90% decrease in recent years – placing the insect on the endangered species list.

The use of uncontrolled pesticides, the continuation of deforestation and lack of cipher flowers (bee food) are the main reasons for the recent population nosedive.

In der Landwirtschaft sind Insektengifte weit verbreitet. Manche Substanzen wie die Neonicotinoide töten allerdings nicht nur Schädlinge, sondern schädigen auch Bienen. Das ZDF hat bei Recherchen nach eigenen Angaben ermittelt, dass manche Giftstoffe längst hätten verboten werden müssen. Am Mittwoch, 30. Oktober 2019, berichtete „ZDFzoom“ ab 22.45 Uhr über „BAYER, Bauern und die Bienen - Ein Konzern unter Druck“.

Neil Mossop knows bees. His family's been in the honey business in Tauranga for more than 70 years. But that experience couldn't have prepared him for the shock of finding nearly 200 of his hives decimated - six million bees wiped out. "There was just a mat of dead bees," he says. Initially, Mossop thought his bees had been deliberately poisoned. But once that was ruled out, he had an inkling as to what was killing them.

Britain's native hedgehog population has declined by half in the last two decades, with less than a million now remaining in the UK. The reclusive creatures are vanishing from rural areas at record rates, according to a new study by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) and People’s Trust for Endangered Species. The State of Britain’s Hedgehogs report warns there are fewer than one million of hedgehogs left living in our gardens, hedgerows and fields. This is down half a million on 1995's estimations.

Nonostante la moratoria europea del 2013 sull’uso all’aperto, e la successiva conferma in senso restrittivo e permanente (a eccezione delle serre) del 2018, i neonicotinoidi clotianidina, imidacloprid e thiamethoxam sono ancora molto presenti sui terreni del vecchio continente e, in particolare, su quelli francesi, dove questi insetticidi sono stati vietati del tutto nel 2018 per tutelare le api e gli altri insetti impollinatori.

Neonicotinoid insecticides have been signaled as an important driver of widespread declines in bee diversity and abundance. Neonicotinoids were registered in the 1990s and by 2010 accounted for one third of the global insecticide market. Following a moratorium in 2013, their use on open-field crops was completely banned in the EU in 2018. Pesticide regulation should be based on solid and updated scientific evidence, whereby products showing unacceptable effects on the environment are not approved.