Bird decline, insect decline and neonicotinoids

Einige Pestizide, die derzeit in Europa und Australien im Einsatz sind, können die regionale Artenvielfalt von wirbellosen Tieren in Fließgewässern um bis zu 42 Prozent reduzieren. Das berichten Forscher in den “Proceedings” der US-Akademie der Wissenschaften (PNAS). Mikhail A. Beketov und Matthias Liess vom Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ) in Leipzig analysierten gemeinsam mit Ben Kefford von der Technischen Universität Sydney und Ralf B. Schäfer vom Institut für Umweltwissenschaften Landau die Auswirkungen von Pestiziden wie Insektiziden und Fungiziden auf den regionalen Artenreichtum von Wirbellosen in Fließgewässern und verwendeten dafür Daten aus Deutschland, Frankreich und Victoria in Australien. Die jetzt veröffentlichte Studie ist eigenen Angaben zufolge die erste Studie überhaupt, die die Auswirkungen von Schadstoffen auf die regionale Biodiversität im Zusammenhang mit den Konzentrationen von Pestiziden und den jeweiligen Artenverlusten untersucht hat.

Pesticide use has sharply reduced the regional biodiversity of stream invertebrates, such as mayflies and dragonflies, in Europe and Australia, finds a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [1]. Previous research has shown similar decreases in individual streams, but the study by Mikhail Beketov, an aquatic ecologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues analysed the effects of pesticides over broad regions. The team examined 23 streams in the central plains of Germany, 16 in the western plains of France and 24 in southern Victoria, Australia. They classified streams according to three different levels of pesticide contamination: uncontaminated, slightly contaminated and highly contaminated. The researchers found that there were up to 42% fewer species in highly contaminated than in uncontaminated streams in Europe. Highly contaminated streams in Australia showed a decrease in the number of invertebrate families by up to 27% when contrasted with uncontaminated streams. Moreover, the authors say that diversity decreased at pesticide concentrations that European regulations deem environmentally protective. "It shows our risk assessments don't work," says Beketov. "I think we should care about this because invertebrates are an important part of the food web."

Wenn der Nationalrat am kommenden Mittwoch über den Schutz der Bienen streitet, geht es nicht nur um Insekten und das hochemotionale Thema Bienensterben - sondern auch um ein Milliardengeschäft. Behandelt werden drei Vorstösse, wovon besonders einer für Zündstoff sorgt: Die Motion der Wissenschaftskommission WBK mit dem Namen «Ausweitung der Substanzen, die Bienen gefährden» hat den Widerstand der Agrarindustrie hervorgerufen. Der SonntagsZeitung liegen Briefe des Schweizer Agrarmultis Syngenta und des Branchenverbands Scienceindustries an die Parlamentarier vor, in denen die Volksvertreter zu einer Ablehnung von «unbegründeten Verboten» ermuntert werden. Der Vorstoss «würde der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion grossen Schaden zufügen, ohne dass die Bienengesundheit und die Biodiversität dadurch wirklich verbessert würden», argumentiert Scienceindustries. Der Schaden durch diese Stoffe sei durch die Forschung zu wenig gestützt, heisst es weiter. Die Nationalräte sollen die Unterlagen morgen Montag zugestellt bekommen.

Conservationists are highlighting the plight of another rare bird in Surrey to raise awareness of the scale of decline in the county's woodland wildlife species. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says that the willow tit Parus montanus, which was once widespread across the UK, has plummeted in number over the last 30 years. The charity said now recorded sightings have all but ceased in Surrey. And it pointed to the plight of the country's smallest woodpecker, the lesser spotted woodpecker Dendrocopos minor, too, saying it is also an increasingly rare sound in the South-east and the rest of the UK. Previously, the RSPB has drawn attention to arguably Surrey's rarest bird, the Dartford Warbler, which was once regularly spotted in the region's heathland areas, including Reigate Heath, but is now a very rare sight since a crash in its numbers in recent years.
The RSPB was presenting the findings in the wake of last month's State of Nature report.

Per la prima volta, 25 organizzazioni ambientaliste britanniche si sono riunite per la realizzazione di uno studio sullo stato della natura nel Regno Unito e nei Territori d'Oltremare. I risultati di quest'iniziativa sono stati raccolti e pubblicati in un report dal titolo "The State of Nature". Il report è il primo del suo genere a documentare lo stato e le tendenze delle popolazioni di animali e piante nel Regno Unito e nei suoi Territori d'Oltremare. Il report esamina lo stato della natura negli otto principali tipi di habitat del Regno Unito e propone una panoramica delle principali cause dei cambiamenti nella fauna.

More than half the wildlife species found in our islands are declining, under an assault of development, air pollution and chemical attack. Bumblebees, wildflowers, songbirds and butterflies are among the more obvious casualties. Perhaps even more troubling than freefall declines in red squirrels, harbour seals, hedgehogs, starlings and all the others, is the fact that the crisis facing the living fabric of our environment is hardly mentioned in politics. And not only have ministers recently turned their attention away from the protection of nature, they have presented efforts to protect it as the enemy of growth, development and business. George Osborne's claim that laws to protect rare species are a 'ridiculous burden on business', Owen Paterson's championing the cause of Bayer and Syngenta in opposing the moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides and Michael Gove's attempts to downgrade education about our relationship with the natural environment are recent cases in point. With this in mind we can confidently guess that the government's on-going review of EU environmental laws is not intended to strengthen the protection of nature in these islands.

Die Umweltreferenten der österreichischen Bundesländer haben sich bei ihrer Konferenz in Wien nicht auf einen Konsens zum Bienenschutz einigen können. „Von einigen Ländern hat es schon im Vorfeld den Vorstoß gegeben, gemeinsam ein Ländernetzwerk zu bilden, wo man sagt: Gemeinsam wollen wir die Neonicotinoide nicht, wie auf EU-Ebene vorgesehen ist, für eine beschränkte Zeit, sondern generell und ohne zeitliche Befristung zu verbieten“, erklärte Wiens Umweltstadträtin Ulli Sima in einer Pressekonferenz nach dem Zusammentreffen der Referenten. Daraus wurde aber nichts, da dafür ein einstimmiger Beschluss vonnöten gewesen wäre. „Die Bundesländer, die durch ÖVP-Landesräte vertreten waren, konnten sich offensichtlich nicht zu einem weitergehenden Beschluss durchringen, als es jetzt von EU-Seite vorgegeben wird“, ärgerte sich Sima. Nur Wien, Tirol, Kärnten, Oberösterreich und das Burgenland votierten dafür.

The plight of the bees serves as a warning that we still may not quite understand ecology. Ecological farming is part of a larger paradigm shift in human awareness. The corporate denialists appear just like the Pope's shrouded inquisitors in 1615, who refused to look through Galileo's telescope to see the moons of Jupiter. Today's denialists refuse to recognise that Earth's systems operate within real limits. However, the state religion in this case is money, and the state religion won't allow it. The denialists cling to the presumed right to consume, hoard, and obliterate Earth's great bounty for private profits. But hoards of money won't reverse extinction, restore lost soils, or heal the world's bee colonies. Earth's delicately balanced systems can reach tipping points and collapse. Bees, for example, work within a limited range of marginal returns on the energy they exert to collect nutrition for their colonies. When winter bee deaths grow from 10% to 50%, the remaining bees are weakened by toxins, and the wild habitats shrink, that thin, ecological margin of energy return can be squeezed to zero. Surviving bees expend more energy than they return in honey. More bees die, fewer reach maturity, and entire colonies collapse. This crisis is a lesson in fundamental ecology. Rachel Carson warned of these systemic constraints 50 years ago. Ecologists and environmentalists have warned of limits ever since. Bee colony collapse now joins global warming, forest destruction, and species extinctions among our most urgent ecological emergencies. Saving the world's bees appears as one more necessary link in restoring Earth to ecological balance.

Neonicotinoids are now the most widely used insecticides in the world. They act systemically, travelling through plant tissues and protecting all parts of the crop, and are widely applied as seed dressings. As neurotoxins with high toxicity to most arthropods, they provide effective pest control and have numerous uses in arable farming and horticulture. However, the prophylactic use of broad-spectrum pesticides goes against the long-established principles of integrated pest management (IPM), leading to environmental concerns. It has recently emerged that neonicotinoids can persist and accumulate in soils. They are water soluble and prone to leaching into waterways. Being systemic, they are found in nectar and pollen of treated crops. Reported levels in soils, waterways, field margin plants and floral resources overlap substantially with concentrations that are sufficient to control pests in crops, and commonly exceed the LC50 (the concentration which kills 50% of individuals) for beneficial organisms. Concentrations in nectar and pollen in crops are sufficient to impact substantially on colony reproduction in bumblebees..Although vertebrates are less susceptible than arthropods, consumption of small numbers of dressed seeds offers a route to direct mortality in birds and mammals. Major knowledge gaps remain, but current use of neonicotinoids is likely to be impacting on a broad range of non-target taxa including pollinators and soil and aquatic invertebrates and hence threatens a range of ecosystem services.

Een meerderheid van de Kamer schaarde zich vandaag achter een motie van de Partij voor de Dieren voor een verbod op de verkoop van neonicotinoiden aan particulieren. De Partij voor de Dieren pleit al sinds haar entree in de Tweede Kamer voor een verbod op deze bestrijdingsmiddelen. Eerder dit jaar steunde een Kamermeerderheid een motie van de Partij voor de Dieren voor een Europees verbod. Mede daardoor wordt de verkoop van drie soorten neonicotinoïden aan boeren en particulieren eind dit jaar aan banden gelegd. Dat gaat maar om een klein deel van het grote aanbod van de gevaarlijke bestrijdingsmiddelen. De Kamer steunde vandaag een motie van de Partij voor de Dieren waardoor ook de verkoop van andere neonicotinoïden aan particuliere klanten wordt verboden. Daarmee mogen ook producten zoals vlooienbandjes en mierenmiddelen waar het middel imidacloprid in zit niet meer verkocht worden. Dat is belangrijk, omdat wetenschappers erop wijzen dat de neonicotinoïden ook een bedreiging zijn voor de gezondheid van mensen.