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A new study, published in the latest Environmental Pollution journal, has found agricultural chemical residues in the sediments of South Island streams. The authors linked their findings to previous studies that found residues in pine tree needles and mountain air. One pesticide, chlorpyrifos was found in 87% of samples of waterway sediments. These pesticides are not used by organic producers. “We need to urgently improve the environmental record of our agricultural sector so that we can live up to our international brand of producers of clean safe food,” said Green Party agriculture spokesperson Steffan Browning. “The Environmental Protection Authority is effectively the ‘Chemical Promotions Authority’ and is too freely allowing these pesticides through.

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey identified 10 distinct chemicals in the frogs’ tissues, including residues of DDT, an insecticide that’s been banned for more than 40 years. While the new study, published Thursday in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, found only trace amounts of the agricultural chemicals, researchers say that’s almost beside the point: The mere fact that the pesticides had made their way to distant sites in national parks and other public lands was their primary concern. Amphibians are considered excellent indicators of ecosystem health due to their sensitivity to environmental change. And while they’re not as charismatic as polar bears,“they are a part of the food web,” said study leader Kelly Smalling, a research hydrologist who monitors pesticides in amphibians for the U.S. Geological Survey. A recent study of frogs in the U.S. showed that even populations of species thought to be doing well are disappearing at a rate of almost 3% per year. They’re so fragile that Congress created the Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative in 2000 to keep track of the vulnerable animals.

Dr Helen Thompson will leave the government's Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) to join Syngenta on 1 September. Thompson led a field trial of the effect of neonicotinoids – the world's most widely used insecticides – on bees, which was fast-tracked and frequently cited by ministers – although the UK subsequently failed to block a two-year ban in Europe on the pesticides after 15 other EU nations voted in favour. "Government policy should be informed by unbiased and disinterested scientific research," said Joan Walley MP, chair of the environmental audit committee, whose report in April accused the environment secretary Owen Paterson's department of "extraordinary complacency" over bees and pesticides. "This principle is undermined if the government research agency is too close to the pesticides industry and if scientists are zigzagging between the two." A Fera spokeswoman said: "Dr Thompson's move is a reflection of her expertise and international reputation within the scientific community. There is no conflict of interest. There are very specific rules for civil servants governing the acceptance of appointments outside the civil service."

Trichomonas gallinae is an emerging pathogen in wild birds, linked to recent declines in finch (Fringillidae) populations across Europe. Globally, the main hosts for this parasite are species of Columbidae (doves and pigeons); here we carry out the first investigation into the presence and incidence of Trichomonas in four species of Columbidae in the UK, through live sampling of wild-caught birds and subsequent PCR. We report the first known UK cases of Trichomonas infection in 86% of European Turtle Doves Streptopelia turtur sampled, along with 86% of Eurasian Collared Doves Streptopelia decaocto, 47% of Woodpigeons Columba palumbus and 40% of Stock Doves Columba oenas. Birds were more likely to be infected if the farm provided supplementary food for gamebirds. We found three strains of T. gallinae and one strain clustering within the Trichomonas tenax clade, not previously associated with avian hosts in the UK. One T. gallinae strain was identical at the ITS/5.8S/ITS2 ribosomal region to that responsible for the finch trichomonosis epizootic. We highlight the importance of increasing our knowledge of the diversity and ecological implications of Trichomonas parasites in order further to understand the sub-clinical impacts of parasite infection.

But in recent years more and more drivers seem to be finding their windscreens clear. Is it just a vague perception? Or might it correspond to something real and serious, the widespread disappearance of insects in general? Conservationists are starting to think the latter proposition is true. "Anecdotal evidence pointing to the decline of British insects abounds," said Dr George McGavin, acting curator of entomology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. "Most people over the age of 50 talk of seeing many more species of moths, butterflies and other insects when they were children." With a colleague, Dr McGavin in 2000 examined insect records in Warwickshire from 100 years ago and the present day, and found that about 20 per cent of the species surveyed (including beetles, bees, dragonflies and butterflies) had disappeared or were in marked decline. A closer examination showed that 394 beetle species alone had been lost, a decline of 24 per cent.

This report, co-authored by international scientists and researchers, reveals that industry's own studies (including one commissioned by Monsanto) showed as long ago as the 1980s that Roundup's active ingredient glyphosate causes birth defects in laboratory animals.The facts are these:1. Industry has known from its own studies since the 1980s that glyphosate causes malformations in experimental animals at high doses;2. Industry has known since 1993 that these effects also occur at lower and mid doses; 3. The German government has known since at least 1998 that glyphosate causes malformations; 4. The EU Commission's expert scientific review panel knew in 1999 that glyphosate causes malformations; 5. The EU Commission has known since 2002 that glyphosate causes malformations. This was the year it signed off on the current approval of glyphosate. But this information was not made public. On the contrary, the pesticide industry and Europe's regulators have jointly misled the public with claims that glyphosate is safe. As a result, Roundup is used by home gardeners and local authorities on roadsides, in school grounds, and in other public areas, as well as in farmers' fields. As recently as 2010, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, BVL, told the Commission there was "no evidence of teratogenicity" (ability to cause birth defects) for glyphosate.

The pesticide contamination of waterways in France is "almost universal" in the intensively farmed and wine-producing regions of the Paris basin, north and south-west being the most affected, says the General Commission for Sustainable Development. "The contamination of rivers is almost universal in France, mainly by herbicides and (in overseas territories - insecticides are the major contaminant )," wrote Commissioner in a note "indicators and indices" dated July 22 and available on the website of the Department of Ecology.

The approval process for GM crops has ground to a halt in Europe despite a clear regulatory path. Crops must first be deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma, Italy. The European Commission must then produce a draft decision within three months, to be voted on by representatives from EU member states before approval can be finalized. The EFSA has deemed eight crops as safe, some as long ago as 2005. But political disquiet over the cultivation of GM crops, including bans in some EU countries, has meant that the commission has not moved forward on any of them. Four crops in limbo — three varieties of maize (corn) and one of soya bean — are Monsanto products. The company, which is based in St Louis, Missouri, also has five GM crops still under review by the EFSA: four maize varieties and one sugar-beet variety. Monsanto says that it will abandon applications for all of them except for one GM maize, MON810. This is already grown in the EU, but is now up for its ten-year re­approval review. That reapproval has already been passed to the commission by the EFSA. Monsanto will now focus its European efforts on its conventional agriculture business and on enabling the import of GM crops for use as animal feed, a widespread EU practice that is less controversial than cultivating the crops in European fields.

In the early years, the St. Louis biotech giant helped pioneer such leading chemicals as DDT, PCBs, and Agent Orange. Unfortunately, these breakthroughs had a tendency to kill stuff. And the torrent of lawsuits that comes from random killing put a crimp on long-term profitability. So Monsanto hatched a less lethal, more lucrative plan. The company would attempt to take control of the world's food supply. It began in the mid-'90s, when Monsanto developed genetically modified (GM) crops such as soybeans, alfalfa, sugar beets, and wheat. These Franken-crops were immune to its leading weed killer, Roundup. That meant that farmers no longer had to till the land to kill weeds, as they'd done for hundreds of years. They could simply blast their entire fields with chemicals, leaving GM crops the only thing standing. Problem solved. The so-called no-till revolution promised greater yields, better profits for the family farm, and a heightened ability to feed a growing world. But there was one small problem: Agriculture had placed a belligerent strongman in charge of the buffet line.

Forthcoming research in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry analyzes the physiological effects of three separate pesticides on honey bees (Apis mellifera). An international research team ¬- Drs. Stephan Caravalho, Luc Belzunces and colleagues from Universidade Federal de Lavras in Brazil and Institut Nationale de la Recherche Agronomique in France - concludes that the absence of mortality does not always indicate functional integrity. Deltamethrin, fipronil and spinosad, widely used pesticides in agriculture and home pest control, were applied to healthy honeybees and proved toxic to some degree irrespective of dosage. At sublethal doses, the pesticides modulated key enzymes that regulate physiological processes, cognitive capacities and immune responses, such as homing flight, associative learning, foraging behavior and brood development. Sensitivity to these insecticides and foraging range (as far as 1.5 to 3 km) make A. mellifera an optimal candidate for monitoring the environmental impacts of pesticides.