Silent Spring version 2.0 – the danger of neonics

Silent Spring version 2.0 – the danger of neonics

In the years 1960, was fired warning against DDT, who controlled pests, but killed insects that were not your target and also birds. The problem is back - now with the use of neonics, Jean Remy Guimarães as shown in his column of July.

By: Jean Remy Davée Guimarães

Published 18/07/2014 | Updated 18/07/2014

http://cienciahoje.uol.com.br/colunas/terra-em-transe/primavera-silenciosa-versao-2.0

A literature review of the last two decades on the neonicotinoid insecticide fipronil and confirms that they are a significant factor decline Bees and other useful invertebrates, compromising ecosystem services such as pollination and pest control.

Apesar give eloquent; evidence, they never seem to be enough to trigger a stronger regulatory action - or less anemic, depending on the point of view -, aimed at limiting the use of neonicotinoids.

But a small group of irreducible warriors undertook a thorough review of available literature in the last 20 years and concluded that there is already plenty of evidence to trigger the alarm and forceful regulatory actions to limit or suspend the use of neonicotinoids and fipronil, nicknamed neonics not tongue tied.

The Working Group on Systemic Pesticides, which brings together independent scientists affiliated to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, its acronym in English), He leaned over 800 work peer reviewed and published in indexed journals.

The results of the initiative, named Worldwide Integrated Assessment (something like Global Integrated Assessment), They will be published in the journal Environment Science and Pollution Research.

We witnessed a threat to the productivity of our natural environment and agriculture as severe as that caused in the past by the DDT and organophosphates

The meta-analysis concluded that these compounds are a serious threat to bees and other pollinators, like butterflies and bumblebees, and also to a wide range of invertebrates, such as earthworms, as well as vertebrates, including birds. We are in the queue - and the queues go.

According to Jean-Marc Bonmatin, the National Center for Scientific Research, from France, an author of the study, the evidence is clear: We witnessed a threat to the productivity of our natural environment and agriculture as severe as that caused in the past by organofosforados and the DDT.

It is worth remembering that in 1962 US researcher Rachel Carson published the seminal silent spring, in which it described the unexpected effects of the indiscriminate application of DDT on crops. The fact pesticide controlling various pests, but there was no way to avoid that birds eat seeds contaminated and die, which explains the book's title, considered the founder of modern environmental awareness.

Modern? there is controversy. The human species stands out for its ability not only to memory, but also of oblivion. So much so that we are repeating exactly the same script than half a century ago. insects, pollinators or not, are disappearing again. Disappearing insects, disappear predators, among which the birds are the most visible. And audible. Or at least they were, until here.

No wonder. The so-called neonics are neurotoxins with immediate and chronic effects. chronic exposure to low doses can also be harmful, with effects that include olfactory impairment and memory, reduction of fertility, change in the flight pattern, increased susceptibility to diseases, change in eating patterns, foraging, change (on earthworms) in standard building dens.

work on the effects that have not been investigated or are not measurable reliably.

we are surrounded

The neonics contaminate non-target species directly, as is the case of the insects that consume nectar of treated plants, reach areas and treated areas appended to the unintentionally, what some experts call coyly of "technical drift".

Maybe they give less prudish names if they were victims of misfortune. But, even if not-attending areas treated with these wonders of the green revolution, its solubility ensures wide dispersion for coastal areas, coastal and estuarine.

The neonics represent about 40% the global market for pesticides and moved 2,62 billion dollars in 2011

How boring, they account for about 40% the global market for pesticides and moved 2,62 billion dollars in 2011. Good, but this is problem of who lives in the countryside, not mine. Ledo mistake, as these products are used in formulas to combat fleas on dogs and cats, termites and wood structures. You're surrounded.

But it should resist. Segundo Maarten Bijleveld van Lexmond, who chairs the IUCN working group, the survey results are troubling, since they show serious threats to ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services such as pollination and natural pest control.

It remains to explain why the entities that regulate the industry did not realize what was widely available in the literature. The IUCN group came to their conclusions without worrying even lift chair; sufficed a few clicks and many man-hours and women-hour reading.

Bees and their disappearance are, For some time, the most visible part (no pun) the problem. But even so they took steps to limit the use of neonics, except for timid actions of the European Commission.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of neonics swear that they are not to blame in the collapse of the bees and that claims to the contrary are the work of the competition (which?) and powerful lobby international environmental, who wants to take us back to an era of hunger and disease.

Rental pollinators

For bees, such was reached some time. environmentally realistic concentrations of neonics seriously affect their career management skills, learning, food collection, disease resistance, fertility and longevity.

Even when transferred to an untreated field, about half of bee previously exposed to a treated field can not return to the hive and dies.

About half of the treated bees exposed to a field with neonics can not return to the hive and dies

But stop suffering. Your problems are over. A private initiative, always attentive to market demands, already has a solution to the problems that it itself caused: O rental pollinators, with steering wheels hives that are rented to farmers.

Of course, they are created in untreated areas before going to sacrifice. The service is expensive, because there are few untreated areas available to beekeepers and bees because losses are high, since most of them loses home course after work - and not because they stopped at some bar…

There's no doubt, the market has solution for everything. But not for everyone. Book your hive to harvest 2015: demand is greater than supply.Jean Remy Davée GuimarãesInstitute of Biophysics Carlos Chagas FilhoUniversidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro