Call to ban pesticides

On 24 January the UK Parliament House of Commons debated the impact on bees and other insects of the new generation of pesticides that has been linked to bee mortality in other countries. The Government were requested to suspend all neonicotinoid pesticides approved in Britain, pending more tests of their longterm effects on bees and other invertebrates. The chemicals are already banned in France, Germany and Italy however the UK Government has refused calls for them to be suspended. The compounds, which imitate the action of nicotine, the natural insecticide substance found in tobacco, are arousing increasing concern among environmentalists and beekeepers because they are systemic (enter every part of a treated plant, including the pollen and nectar). Thus bees and other pollinating insects can pick them up, even if they are not the target species for which the pesticide is intended. A study by the USDA Bee Research Laboratory (unpublished for nearly two years, but now being prepared for publication) backed by research in France, indicates that even microscopic doses of neonicotinoids make bees more vulnerable to disease.

Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor www.independent.co.uk