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Buglife’s Matt Shardlow gave evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee on Wednesday and said:
“The economic case for neonicotinoids is marginal at best the environmental cost is a price too high to pay. The use of these indiscriminate pesticides must be suspended before it is too late to halt the alarming decline in wild pollinators. Italy, Germany, France and Serbia are among the nations to have already suspended the use of these killers. It is time the Government realised that the public have no wish for the UK to be considered the dirty old man of Europe.”
For more on Buglife’s campaign click here.
See also Guest Blog on this subject by Rosemary Mason and Derek Thomas.
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Very interesting to read Woodland Trust comments on the possibility of using fungicides against Ash disease which they say ‘would in our view have unacceptable impact on non-target species’.
Quite right in my view – but when did we ever hear that sort of thinking applied to agriculture, which as the Plantlife report ‘Forestry Recommissioned’ describes has probably dumped more pesticides & artificial nutrients on our woodlands than forestry ever did.
“… using fungicides against Ash disease …”
J E van der Planck (1963) explained the unlikelihood of such an approach having any remote possibility of success, apart from a delay in the development of the epidemic, because of the impossibility of destroying all inoculum. Or something. It was the 60’s, remember …
It would help if every plant in the woodland including the trees didnt depend on fungi….but they do…so the impact would be catastrophic.