A new power struggle is unfolding behind the scenes at the European Commission, under pressure from agrochemical companies that want the toxicity tests on honeybees and wild bees—which are currently required for pesticides to be approved for the market—to exclude a large portion of the harmful effects these pesticides have on honeybees, bumblebees, and solitary bees.
Press release from Pollinis announcing the launch of a petition to call on the European Commission…
“The industry’s first salvo: On March 3, during a hearing of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, the European Commission and EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, revealed that there were discussions about not setting a quantified conservation target for solitary bees. Later, the same proposal was made for bumblebees.”.
This means that the industry will be able to conduct toxicity tests on its pesticides using, for example, mason bees and bumblebees, and decide for itself what threshold above which the mortality rate of these foragers is not legally acceptable.
A solid gold gift for the industry!
Together with PAN (Pesticide Action Network), Apimondia, and BeeLife, we strongly opposed this proposal. We presented arguments in favor of specific, protective thresholds (12), and reiterated that ”The important thing was not to pamper the industry's profits, but rather to prevent the extinction of pollinators and the collapse of life!"
“Numerous scientific studies have shown that the The irreplaceable role of wild pollinators in crop pollination (2)—a role that honeybees alone could not fulfill:
- Research conducted on apple trees (3), strawberry plants (4), sunflowers (5), and squash (6) has consistently shown that these crops yield higher yields when pollinated by a variety of pollinators;
- Some plants require the assistance of a specific pollinator to ensure fertilization. This is the case with tomato plants, whose ground-dwelling bumblebees vibrate the flowers to release their pollen, or with a wide variety of flowers in the sweet pea family, which require the strength of a megachile or a carpenter bee (xylocope) to open their corolla and trigger pollination by releasing their stamens (7).
Yet these precious pollinators are seriously threatened by pesticide contamination of their habitat that are poisoning them: 45.6% of bumblebee species (8) and 36.8% of solitary bee species (9) are currently in decline in Europe, according to the European Red List of Threatened Species.
Their disappearance would seriously jeopardize the food security of the entire population and hasten the extinction of a large number of species of birds, fish, and mammals—both large and small—that they feed, either directly or indirectly…
We must act now!
European authorities have the power to quickly put a stop to this disaster :
They know that the toxicity tests on honeybees and wild bees that are currently required for pesticides to be approved for the market (and which were drafted by the agrochemical industry itself!) do not take into account a large portion of the harmful effects the effects of these pesticides on honeybees, bumblebees, and solitary bees.
Since 2013, they have had a document (10) that lists the procedures to be implemented to ensure that pesticides authorized in Europe are indeed safe for pollinators—and to quickly remove from the market substances that are decimating these precious pollinators.
Under pressure from lobby groups, and despite 10 years of intense battles in Brussels—where we fought with all our might to get these procedures adopted—this document has now been shelved (11).
The agrochemical industry has secured a gradual review by the European Commission of the risk assessment procedures for its pesticides; this process began two years ago with honeybees.
We went head-to-head for many months, produced comprehensive reports and detailed, well-documented proposals, and have stood firm in the face of the disproportionate influence of lobby groups.
We had the support of hundreds of thousands of citizens, as well as public opinion in general, which is largely concerned about the decline of honeybees. The European Commission knew it was in the spotlight and couldn’t just propose anything.
But who cares about bumblebees, mason bees, colletes, xylocopes, and the nearly 2,000 species of small, inconspicuous wild bees that inhabit our landscapes and have ensured the reproduction of the fruits and vegetables cultivated by our ancestors since time immemorial?
Have you even heard about the ongoing review of pesticide toxicity tests on solitary bees and bumblebees that is currently being negotiated in Brussels?
The agrochemical lobbies and the European Commission believe they can to make a secret deal ”to continue putting substances that are deadly to pollinators on the market—with the blessing of health authorities, who will simply enforce the regulations they’ve been given!"
To learn more about Pollinis, the independent NGO dedicated to the cause of bees
