Brussels, 09/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - It is a matter of urgency to totally eliminate “bee-killer pesticides” from agriculture, it is stated in a scientific study on the decline of bees published on Tuesday 9 April by Greenpeace. The study examines the factors that put pollinators and agriculture in Europe at risk. Publication of the scientific report marks the launch of a new European-wide campaign to save the bees and to promote ecological agriculture which produces food without chemicals and provides healthier habitats for domesticated and wild pollinators.
The study highlights the ecological and economic importance of healthy bee populations and shows that the elimination of pesticides could be a first, vitally important, step towards protecting bee health and safeguarding their role as pollinators, which is essential for ecosystems and food production in Europe. Although diseases, parasites, climate change and intensive farming practices are all factors that are responsible for the decline in bee populations, the study shows that, besides acute poisoning that leads to immediate bee death, pesticides have other harmful effects (especially physiological effects, perturbation of the foraging pattern, interference with feeding behaviour and a neurotoxic impact on learning processes), and that the ability of bees to resist diseases and parasites seems to be directly influenced by their exposure to such toxic chemicals, with catastrophic consequences for the health and survival of honeybees and other wild pollinators.
Greenpeace has identified seven priority bee-killer pesticides that should be banned due to their extremely high toxicity, sub-lethal and/or systemic effect on bees: imidacloprid and clothianidin, Syngenta's thiamethoxam, BASF's fipronil, and clorpyriphos, cypermethrin and deltamethrin produced by other agrochemical companies.
Greenpeace therefore calls on policy makers across Europe to: - support the Commission's proposal aimed at a two-year suspension of the use of the three neonicotinoid pesticides that are the most harmful for bees (see EUROPE 10813 and 10809); - support Europe-wide action to ban all pesticides that are harmful to bees and other vital pollinators; - and shift funding away from chemical-intensive agriculture and promote ecological farming. As member state experts failed in March to take a stance either for or against the Commission's proposal, another vote is expected during May.
The study by Greenpeace is available on: http://www.bees-decline.org . (AN/transl.jl)