Craig Bennet of the Wildlife Trusts said;
We are preparing to take legal action unless the Government can prove it acted lawfully. The Government refused a request for emergency authorisation in 2018 and we want to know what’s changed. Where’s the new evidence that it’s ok to use this extremely harmful pesticide?
Using neonicotinoids not only threatens bees but is also extremely harmful to aquatic wildlife because the majority of the pesticide leaches into soil and then into waterways. Worse still, farmers are being recommended to use weedkiller to kill wildflowers in and around sugar beet crops in a misguided attempt to prevent harm to bees in the surrounding area. This is a double blow for nature.
Only 5% of this toxic neonicotinoid goes where it is wanted in the crop; most ends up in the soil where it can be absorbed by the roots of wildflowers, and also ends up in our rivers, potentially affecting other insects and wildlife.
This comes at a time when the Government has yet again delayed the vitally important Environment Bill, and which once more highlights the gap between the rhetoric and reality of the Government’s commitment to restoring nature and tacking the twin nature and climate crises.
Over 56,000 people have signed The Wildlife Trusts’ petition in the last few days to ask the Prime Minister to overturn the neonics decision, and 40,000 people have emailed their MP. Every single MP has been emailed by a constituent on this matter.
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/wildlife-trusts-explore-legal-challenge-government-decision-allow-emergency-use-neonicotinoid
Tom Short of Leigh Day said;
Our client is deeply concerned that the Secretary of State has granted this authorisation despite the serious risks that use of neonicotinoids outdoors presents to the natural world. The UK Expert Committee on Pesticides, along with many other expert bodies, has repeatedly urged against such authorisations. The Secretary of State’s announcement provides no new evidence of a genuine need to resort to the use neonicotinoids justifying an emergency authorisation or that the risks of such use can be adequately controlled. Our client is pressing for urgent answers and contemplates pursuing this in the courts if Secretary of State’s response falls short.
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/wildlife-trusts-explore-legal-challenge-government-decision-allow-emergency-use-neonicotinoid
The Wildlife Trusts also have a petition (which is also a name-gatherer) here.
This is an interesting move and I wonder whether the staid Wildlife Trusts would have done such a thing under previous managment. There will be local county or regional wildlife trusts across the country (and in this case the country is, I guess, England) who will be getting outraged communications from their farmer members. So it is a somewhat brave, or at least more confident move from the Wildlife Trusts to put nature at the front of their work, whatever the consequences. also, it is a welcome move tht the stodgy traditional conservtion organisations are beginning to realise that this government needs fighting rather than being chatted to.
So, well done Wildlife Trusts.
Having said that, I think this is a complex issue and one that will be difficult to win. The Wildlife Trusts have good lawyers though!
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I couldn’t agree more on the ‘staid’ position of groups that pupport to protect the environment. It’s time to step up and be counted. Until that happens environmental issues will only be tackled in a piecemeal way.
Susan – thank you for your first comment here.
And these neonics are to be used on sugar beet, a crop that causes enormous damage to all that consume it and adds considerable expense for the NHS to treat the knockon effects.
I wrote to my Tory MP and received this, presumably generic, reply:
Dear Richard,
Thank you for your email about the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.
The UK took the decision to support restrictions prohibiting the outdoor use of three neonicotinoids because, based on the scientific evidence, Ministers were not prepared to put our pollinator populations at risk. The evidence on the toxicity of these chemicals to bees, and their persistence in the environment, means that the clear advice of scientific advisers is that these restrictions continue to be justified.
However, the decision to restrict the use of neonicotinoids has affected the ability of farmers to control aphids and virus yellow disease, particularly in some areas of the country, and sugar beet growers suffered significant yield losses in 2020 because of these difficulties. As such, the Government continues to support the restrictions on neonicotinoids to protect pollinators, but allows for the emergency authorisations for pesticides, which are only granted in exceptional circumstances where diseases or pests cannot be controlled by any other reasonable means. From your email you seem to recognise this. Emergency authorisations like this are used by countries across Europe, and can provide short term availability of a product if the applicant can demonstrate that this addresses a danger which cannot be contained by any other reasonable means, that the use will be limited and controlled and that the necessary protection of people and of the environment can be achieved.
I would like to reassure you that pesticides can only be used where there is judged to be no harm to human health and animal health and no unacceptable risks to the environment. Furthermore, I understand that the temporary use of this product in 2021 is strictly limited to a non-flowering crop, and will be tightly controlled to minimise any potential risk to pollinators.
Protecting pollinators is a priority for the Government. The National Pollinator Strategy, published in 2014, is a ten year plan which sets out how the Government, conservation groups, farmers, beekeepers and researchers can work together to improve the status of the approximately 1,500 pollinating insect species in England. Minimising the risk to pollinators from pesticides is one of the aims within the strategy and encourages steps to minimise pesticide usage.
Thank you, once again, for taking the time to write to me.
John.
How many others got a similar response I wonder. Iread this section twice.
“I would like to reassure you that pesticides can only be used where there is judged to be no harm to human health and animal health and no unacceptable risks to the environment.”
Well done Richard for writing on this and receiving this reply. It all sounds somewhat reassuring but one just wonders how much of what your MP says is actually quoted from what the pesticides manufactures and the farmers say and therefore what can be believed. From past experience “not a lot”.
The other issue is the persistence of these poisons in the environment . A colleague of mine studies the effects of micro pollutants in streams and rivers and even low levels of parts.per million or parts per billion can have dramatic effects on fresh water fish, plants and other insects.. Altogether it is bad news.
I have received exactly the same letter from my (Broxtowe) MP. Word for word – apart from the top and tail. I have been invited to join a ‘virtual’ coffee morning with him to discuss environmental issues. Where do we start? Neonics? Hen Harriers? Badgers? HS2? Muirburn? Mass releases of gamebirds? Might be interesting!
Well done, Wildlife Trusts! Delighted to see you standing up and being counted.
According to Professor Dave Goulson, an expert on bees and pesticides, “just one teaspoon (5 g) of neonicotinoid is enough to deliver a lethal dose to 1 ¼ billion honeybees” and once applied it stays around for years. I remain convinced that the declines of many birds are because of the declines of invertebrates which are in large part due to these exceptionally effective modern pesticides.
Greenfly – and a greenfly should know!
Pesticides? They are not “targeted” enough to be labelled as such IMO. They are generic insecticides.
The generic term “Pesticides” has applied to all types of plant protection product including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, molluscicides and plant growth regulators, whether or not these are natural or synthetic, since the Control of Pesticides Regs were introduced – in 1986.
Very best of luck to the Wildlife Trusts legal challenge. We have not left the EU for more than two weeks before this Government is consenting to the use of formally banned poisons.
Yes you would think they would try to avoid falling into line with the 13 EU countries which have already granted similar derogations for neonicotinoid seed treatments to be used for this year’s sugar beet crop.