{"id":133791,"date":"2014-07-28T17:47:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T17:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=133791"},"modified":"2014-07-28T17:47:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T17:47:31","slug":"bee-studies-feel-sting-pesticide-manufacturers-mps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/sicence-technology\/bee-studies-feel-sting-pesticide-manufacturers-mps\/","title":{"rendered":"Bee studies feel sting of pesticide manufacturers \u2014 MPs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #000000;\">Corporate funding from pesticide manufacturers threatens to contaminate research into the impact of agricultural chemicals on the declining bee population, warn a committee of MPs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">Reacting to the government\u2019s draft\u00a0<a style=\"color: #044faa;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm201415\/cmselect\/cmenvaud\/213\/213.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">National Pollinator Strategy<\/a>, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) says further research needs to be transparent and subject to independent controls in order to stave off corporate influence and to command public confidence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>\u201cWhen it comes to research on pesticides, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is content to let the manufacturers fund the work,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Chair of the Committee, Joan Walley MP, said.\u00a0<em>\u201cThis testifies to a loss of environmental protection capacity in the Department responsible for it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>\u201cIf the research is to command public confidence, independent controls need to be maintained at every step. Unlike other research funded by pesticide companies, these studies also need to be peer-reviewed and published in full,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0she added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<div class=\"ration_16-9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I0oXz_PfmBw\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">A number of factors\u2013including habitat loss, climate change, parasites and use of pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids\u2013are widely believed to have an adverse impact on pollinators.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">The goal of Defra\u2019s strategy is to safeguard pollinators and their essential role in ecosystems, and launch a program of research to address the \u2018patchy\u2019 evidence picture on what affects pollinator numbers.<\/p>\n<p>n April 2013, the EAC published their own report on Pollinators and Pesticides, recommending the government immediately ban the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides \u2013 clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam.<\/p>\n<p>The government rejected that recommendation, arguing that available studies did not produce\u00a0<em>\u201cunequivocal evidence that \u2026 serious implications for colonies are likely to arise from current uses of neonicotinoids\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>However, the European Food Safety Authority\u2019s risk assessment of the three neonicotinoids resulted in the European Commission banning their use on crops attractive to bees. The ban came into effect in December 2013 and is due to be reviewed in 2015.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cDefra should use the final National Pollinator Strategy to draw a line under the European neonicotinoid ban,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Walley added.\u00a0<em>\u201cIt should make clear that it now accepts the ban and will not seek to overturn it when the European Commission conducts a review next year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">Public concern about the plight of bees is extremely high in the UK. Tens of thousands of people have taken part in the Great British Bee Count, a national bee survey organized by Friends of the Earth, Buglife and B&amp;Q, since it launched in June, with over two thirds of a million bees already recorded.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">Reacting to the report, Friends of the Earth nature campaigner Sandra Bell, who gave evidence to the MPs\u2019 inquiry, said the government\u2019s strategy didn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>\u201cIf the government\u2019s action plan to protect Britain\u2019s pollinators is to have any credibility, it must back the ban on bee-harming insecticides and set out a clear strategy to reduce pesticide use,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0said Bell.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>\u201cTough measures are also needed to halt the continued loss of our precious wildflower meadows and to help all farmers play a full role in reversing bee decline. Thousands of people across the UK are already taking action to help our crucial bee populations &#8211; the government must act too.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">The final version of the strategy will be published later this autumn, followed by a detailed delivery plan six months later.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/uk\/176060-bees-population-pesticides-manufacturers\/\" target=\"_blank\">This piece<\/a> was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rinf.com\" target=\"_blank\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Corporate funding from pesticide manufacturers threatens to contaminate research into the impact of agricultural chemicals on the declining bee population, warn a committee of MPs. Reacting to the government\u2019s draft\u00a0National Pollinator Strategy, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) says further research needs to be transparent and subject to independent controls in order to stave off corporate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,13],"tags":[703,704],"class_list":{"0":"post-133791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-sicence-technology","9":"tag-bees","10":"tag-pesticide"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}