[Pollinator] USFWS intriduces nationwide ban of neonicotinoids on wildlife refuges?

[Matthew Shepherd]

FROM: Take Part

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/31/us-bans-gmos-bee-killing-pesticides-national-wildlife-refuges


The U.S. Bans GMOs, Bee-Killing Pesticides in All Wildlife RefugesThe Fish
and Wildlife Service will phase out genetically engineered crops and
neonicotinoids by 2016.

July 31, 2014 By Todd Woody <http://www.takepart.com/author/todd-woody>

Todd Woody is TakePart's senior editor for environment and wildlife.

The U.S. government is creating a safe place for bees on national wildlife
refuges by phasing out the use of genetically modified crops and an
agricultural pesticide implicated in the mass die-off of pollinators.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System
manages 150 million acres across the country. By January 2016, the agency
will ban the use of neonicotinoids, widely used nerve poisons that a growing
number of scientific studies
<http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/25/first-bees-then-birds-and-now-fish-are-risk-particularly-toxic-pesticide-0>
have shown are harmful to bees, birds, mammals, and fish. Neonicotinoids,
also called neonics, can be sprayed on crops, but most often the seeds are
coated with the pesticide so that the poison spreads throughout every part
of the plant as it grows, including the pollen and nectar that pollinators
like bees and butterflies eat.

“We have determined that prophylactic use, such as a seed treatment, of the
neonicotinoid pesticides that can distribute systemically in a plant and
can affect a broad spectrum of non-target species is not consistent with
Service policy,” James Kurth, chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System,
wrote in a July 17 memo
<http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/agricultural-practices-in-wildlife-management_20849.pdf>
.

The move follows a regional wildlife chief’s decision on July 9 to ban
neonics
<http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/16/good-news-bees-government-bans-pesticide-use-wildlife-refuges>
in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands by 2016.

The nationwide ban, however, goes further as it also prohibits the use of
genetically modified seeds to grow crops to feed wildlife.

A FWS spokesperson declined to comment on why the agency was banning
genetically modified organisms in wildlife refuges.

But in his memo, Kurth cited existing agency policy. “We do not use
genetically modified organisms in refuge management unless we determine
their use is essential to accomplishing refuge purpose(s),” he wrote. “We
have demonstrated our ability to successfully accomplish refuge purposes
over the past two years without using genetically modified crops, therefore
it is no longer to say their use is essential to meet wildlife management
objectives.”

GMOs have not been linked directly to the bee die-off. But the dominance of
GMO crops has led to the widespread use of pesticides like neonicotinoids
and industrial farming practices that biologists believe are harming other
pollinators, such as the monarch butterfly
<http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/30/monarch-butterfly-numbers-are-plummeting-and-heres-what-you-can-do-help>
.

Neonicotinoids account for 40 percent of the global pesticide market and
are used to treat most corn and soybean crops in the U.S.

“We are gratified that the Fish and Wildlife Service has finally concluded
that industrial agriculture, with GE crops and powerful pesticides, is both
bad for wildlife and inappropriate on refuge lands,” Jeff Ruch, executive
director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in a
statement.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20140801/f9c900d7/attachment.html>