Beleid en debat

Butterflies in Singapore have decreased in both number and variety since the 1980s. Excluding new butterfly species, some 117 are now believed to be extinct; there have been no reliable observations of them for at least the past two decades. A comparison with past recorded checklists shows there are now 306 species, down from 386 in the 1950s to 1980s. Citing these figures, butterfly expert Khew Sin Khoon, who is also an honorary research affiliate at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, said the trend was mainly due to the loss of habitats. "Butterflies are tightly correlated with plants, and as Singapore developed, the habitats that they prefer may have been destroyed... Some of the caterpillar host plants may have (also) gone extinct," he said. It is not known when the sharpest decline in the number of butterfly species took place but Mr Khew said the peak of development occurred in the 1970s and 1980s when tracts of land were cleared to make way for new homes. Ecologist Anuj Jain, 29, said that over the years, developments around forests have resulted in what he calls "fragmented forests". "If the forest is big, you have a bigger interior but if you have smaller forests, it means there are more areas for light exposure," said Mr Anuj, who heads the Butterfly Interest Group at Nature Society of Singapore (NSS). "Although some species are adaptable to light conditions, most butterflies like to hide in darker areas."More recently, the increased fumigation in residential areas is also threatening butterflies and caterpillars, said Mr Khew.

The Associated Press’ report described pesticide use near heavily populated areas, children being regularly exposed to harmful agrochemicals, the contamination of water supplies, and workers who were not properly trained to handle such pesticides. The AP report focused on regions in Argentina that produce soybeans, cotton and corn. According to the news agency, Argentina adopted the use of genetically modified organisms, GMOs, as well as agrochemicals from Monsanto Co., in 1996 and all of the country’s soy crops, with corn and cotton just behind, are genetically modified. Despite the claims from Monsanto that pesticide use would decrease with GMO crops, the new report indicates instead a dramatic increase, from nine million gallons used in 1990 to 84 million gallons in 2013. That number, per square acre, is more than double the pesticide use in the United States, reports AP.

Conservationists have urged the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, to use the money newly available from the EU's common agricultural policy to step up protection measures. Since 2003, there has been a 13% decline in the population of farmland birds. In the five years to the end of 2012, the decline was 8% overall. The decline has slowed, according to the Wild Bird Indicator statistics released by the government on Thursday, and some species are in better health than they were in the 1970s when data began to be comprehensively collected. However, conservationists are concerned that the drop in numbers is continuing, with a halving of farmland bird numbers in the past 40 years. Woodland birds are down 17%.

Something is very wrong in Wellington County, Ontario – Jim Coneybeare says his bees are dying at an alarming rate.
“It’s my livestock. It shouldn’t be dead stock,” he says. “There is a toxic environment out there that is killing our bees. It’s a severe problem.” Coneybeare believes a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids (NNIs) are killing his bees. Over the past three years, Canadian beekeepers have faced annual losses as high as 35 percent. “Let’s face it, this is an insecticide designed to kill insects, and it’s doing that. It’s killing bees,” he says. Experts say these losses are unsustainable. One-third of all food we eat – including almonds, melons, tomatoes, and cucumbers – is pollinated by bees. Beekeepers like Coneybeare just can’t keep up. While there are many factors associated with bee declines – including mites, viruses, and loss of habitat – there is mounting evidence that NNIs, such as one manufactured by Bayer CropScience called clothianidin, play an important part. When used appropriately, Bayer says its pesticide does not hurt bees. “Currently there is no science that say otherwise,” says Bayer’s Ontario research-and-development manager Luc Bourgeois about the company’s production of clothianidin. Clothianidin is used widely on corn, soya, and other crops.

In the past six months of 2012 about US$2bn (£1.25bn) was spent on acquisitions of biopesticide companies by such notable names as BASF (Becker Underwood), Syngenta (Pasteuria) and Bayer CropScience (AgraQuest). The market in 2012 was estimated to be worth $1.6 (£1bn) at grower level, however, projections estimate that by 2016 that could be in the region of $3bn (£1.9bn). Biocontrols and biopesticides offer a way of reducing the use of conventional chemistry, offering a "greener" and more sustainable way of protecting crops.

A frightening disease has been ravaging amphibians across the planet. At least 350 species have been infected, two hundred of which have suffered massive population reductions or extinctions, some even occurring within the space of weeks. In 1999, a single fungal species called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), commonly known as the chytrid fungus, was identified as the causative agent for these rapid die-offs. This facilitated preemptive testing of rare or endangered amphibian populations for Bd, the early detection of which allowed scientists to establish captive breeding populations to stem amphibian species extinctions. Frighteningly, despite this discovery, there remain perplexing instances of rapid amphibian deaths that do not test positive for Bd. An Martel of Ghent University, in the journal PNAS, has recently reported a possible explanation for these mysterious deaths. Together with an international team of scientists, she has identified a second culprit: a new chytrid species named Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bs), which can be translated to "the salamander-eating fungus."

Deutsche Konzerne haben vom Europäischen Patentamt mehr Patente auf gentechnisch veränderte Pflanzen erhalten als ihr Konkurrent Monsanto aus den USA. Das zeigt eine Auswertung aller rund 2.000 Schutzrechte auf transgene Pflanzen, die das Amt in den vergangenen 20 Jahren erteilt hat. Sie wurde von den Initiativen „Kein Patent auf Leben!“ und „Coordination gegen Bayer-Gefahren“ erstellt und lag der taz vorab vor. Der Leverkusener Chemiekonzern Bayer besitzt demnach 206 Patente auf Gentech-Pflanzen wie Mais, Weizen oder Bäume. Das US-Unternehmen Pioneer steht mit 179 Schutzrechten auf Platz zwei - gefolgt von der Ludwigshafener BASF mit 144. Monsanto steht nur auf Rang fünf mit 119 Patenten, hinter der Schweizer Syngenta mit 135 Schutzrechten.

Friends of the Earth Canada has filed a notice of objection to Health Canada’s decision under the Pest Control Products Act to renew conditional registration of a bee-toxic pesticide, clothianidin, despite lack of due diligence by the applicant companies. Health Canada’s agency dealing with pesticides is recommending renewing use of clothianidin on potatoes, grape, pome fruits (like apples), stone fruits and turf even though the applicant chemical companies have not met conditions of their earlier registration. Because the pesticide accumulates in pollen and nectar, the chemical companies were required back in 2009 to do a hive study to assess chronic toxicity to bees and a study of the behaviour of clothianidin in plants. Friends of the Earth believes this research is even more important today than it was in 2009 given the dramatic die-off of Canada’s pollinators like honey bees. “Canada’s Minister of Health should put protection of the environment and the safety of bees ahead of profits of chemical companies,” says Beatrice Olivastri, CEO, Friends of the Earth Canada. “Clothianidin should be off the market until proven safe to bees and other pollinators.”