Bijensterfte, oorzaken en gevolgen

Vrijdag 5 april 2013 verscheen het rapport van de Britse parlementaire enquette naar de misstanden bij de toelating van neonicotinoide insecticiden. Het parlementaire onderzoek waarin in uren lange zittingen gericht op waarheidsvinding tal van wetenschappers en industriemensen stevig aan de tand gevoeld zijn komt tot heldere conclusies. Er zijn grote redenen tot zorg dat het grootschalig gebruik van neonicotinoiden bijdraagt aan de sterke achteruitgang van wilde bestuivende insecten en bijdraagt aan de toegenomen problemen in de hongingbijenhouderij. Met de toelating is veel mis en de recente veldstudie waarmee Dr. Helen Thompson van Food and Environment Research Agency de eerdere veldstudie van Whitehorn ea (2012) (naar de lange termijn effecten van imidacloprid op het aantal koninginnen per hommelvolk) onderuit dacht te halen, is wetenschappelijk ver beneden de maat. De bevindingen van Whitehorn dat imidacloprid bij normaal toegelaten gebruik zeer schadelijk is voor hommels, blijven overeind.

Belangrijkste aanbeveling, unaniem gedragen door alle partijen in het lagerhuis :
Per 1 januari 2014 moeten imidacloprid, clothianidine en thiamethoxam in Engeland voorlopig worden verboden in voor bijen aantrekkelijke gewassen. Alle toelatingen voor particulier gebruik moeten per direct ingetrokken. De Britse regering moet zich daarnaast inzetten voor een Europees verbod.

Oorspronkelijke Engelstalige samenvatting van het rapport:
Insects are exposed to many environmental factors, but recent research suggests that one group of insecticides—neonicotinoids—is having an especially deleterious impact on insect pollinators. The body of peer-reviewed science on that point has developed appreciably in the course of our inquiry, but certainty is—as yet, if ever—unachievable. Our inquiry therefore focused on how Defra and the European Commission addressed monitoring, risk assessment, regulation, risk management, precaution and mitigation in response to the emerging science.

The system for approving pesticides is opaque. The Government should seek reforms whereby the European Food Safety Authority clearly identifies action points in its assessments that the European Commission must explicitly address before approving pesticides for use in the EU, and Member States should not undertake the initial assessment of products developed in their own countries in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

Defra should strategically support insect pollinators in the UK to preserve biodiversity, protect the environment and sustain a key ecosystem service. We were not encouraged by the Government’s UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides, which was a missed opportunity. The plan should be revised to make integrated pest management its clear central principle, with targets to reduce reliance on pesticides as far as possible.

The promotion of integrated pest management is a key feature of the EU Directive on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides, and Member States are required to implement the provisions on integrated pest management by 1 January 2014.

Defra’s application of the precautionary principle involves economic factors becoming entangled with environmental decision making, which not only contradicts Defra’s stated commitment to the precautionary principle, but risks overlooking the significant economic value of insect pollinators to UK agriculture. Defra should prepare to introduce a
moratorium in the UK on the use of imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam by 1 January 2014, and support such a proposal in the EU.

Point 5 of conclusion page 39: The Henry, Whitehorn and Gill laboratory studies raised serious concerns about the potential effect of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees. While laboratory studies should as far as possible replicate field conditions, they cannot by their nature do so precisely. One of their virtues, however, is that they take place in controlled conditions. The FERA bumblebee study, which Defra commissioned to test the conclusions of the laboratory studies in the field, was, we conclude, fundamentally flawed because the bees were placed outside on different dates, some colonies had a lower starting mass than others and a different neonicotinoid from the one used in the study was present in the ‘unexposed’ hives. The FERA bumblebee study is not therefore a compelling basis for inaction. (Paragraph 51)

Lees het hele rapport:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/668/...