[Pollinator] Launch of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on the environmental impacts of systemic pesticides

[Matthew Shepherd]

David Goulson, of the University of Sussex, writes about the results of a
5-year project to review the impacts of neonicotinoids on wildlife.
http://splash.sussex.ac.uk/blog/for/dg229/2014/06/27/launch-of-the-worldwide-integrated-assessment-wia-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-systemic-pesticides
 Launch of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on the environmental
impacts of systemic pesticides

Jun 27, 2014

David Goulson

On Tuesday this week I was in Brussels, for a press conference to launch a
major series of scientific publications on the impacts of neonicotinoid
insecticides on the environment. On the same day, press conferences were
also held in Manila, Tokyo and Ottawa. The publications are the culmination
of 5 years work involving more than 50 scientists from 4 continents, and
together we reviewed evidence from >800 scientific papers. Our findings are
being published as 7 papers in a special issue of the journal Environmental
Science and Pollution Research. All have been accepted for publication
following full, independent, scientific peer-review. The first of the seven
is online now at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-014-3180-5;
this deals with impacts on vertebrates. The rest of the papers will appear
soon as the journal finishes processing them for publication.

The conclusions of our work, in brief, are that these systemic pesticides
are accumulating in soils and polluting waterways and natural vegetation
across the world, leading to widespread impacts on wildlife inhabiting
farmland and aquatic habitats. There is also growing evidence that much of
their use is unnecessary and ineffective. But you can read all about this
over the coming months as the papers come out: all of them are to be open
access.

On Monday, the day before the press conference and before anyone could have
seen the full set of documents, I received a rebuttal of our work from
Croplife, an organisation that represents the agrochemical industry. It was
quite clear that they hadn’t read any of it. Their criticisms were: that
the work was selective in what it reviewed (we looked at 800 papers,
everything that we could find); that we looked only at lab studies (a
bizarre claim, and completely untrue); that we ignored the economic
importance of neonicotinoids and didn’t consider how farmers would cope
without them (there is a whole paper in the WIA just on this topic).

We have also been criticised because not all of our papers are yet
available. Had this been a single report, just placed on the internet
without scientific review, we could easily have made it all available. This
is what industry usually does. But the scientific review and editing
process is slow and not all of the papers were quite ready. On the plus
side, they have the huge advantage that they have all passed independent
scrutiny.

On Wednesday, Syngenta launched a request to the UK government for an
exemption to the European moratorium. They want to treat 186,000 hectares
of oilseed rape with a neonicotinoid – 30% of the UK crop – because they
say that otherwise there is a “danger to production”. There appears to be
no scientific evidence to back up this claim. Indeed, just a week ago on 18
June an industry spokesman appeared before the UK’s Environmental Audit
Committee and was asked to provide a single scientific study showing that
neonicotinoid seed dressings increased yield of any arable crop.
Embarrassingly, he could not. They’ve been selling neonics for 20 years,
but can provide no evidence that they work!? How do they differ from the
quack doctors of days gone by, who peddled cure-alls on street corners with
their slick patter?

One can read Syngenta’s request another way – they seem to be conceding
that 70% of the UK’s oilseed rape doesn’t need treating with neonics. Why
then was 100% treated before the moratorium?

This simply appears to be a ploy by industry to bypass the EU moratorium,
which was based on sound scientific evidence, and recommended by the
European Food Standards Agency. If you’d like to sign a petition against
their request, go to: *https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/a-ban-is-a-ban
<https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c0444f/2d4c1171/4ac15c21/465b7b58/2342329177/VEsD/>*
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