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EU to ban pesticides linked to bee deaths

AM By Mary Gearin and wires
A pollen-covered bumblebee on a flower

Bees account for 80 per cent of plant pollination by insects.

P7r7: Wikipedia

The European Union is set to impose a two-year ban on three pesticides suspected of contributing to the global decline in the number of bees.

Fifteen countries voted to allow the European Commission to restrict the use of the insecticides from December 1.

They failed to reach the weighted majority needed to adopt the ban outright, meaning the decision passed to the European Commission.

"Since our proposal is based on a number of risks to bee health identified by the European Food Safety Authority, the Commission will go ahead with its text in the coming weeks," EU health commissioner Tonio Borg said after the vote.

"I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over 22 billion euros annually to European agriculture, are protected."

The insecticides - imidacloprid and clothianidin and thiamethoxam - are used to treat seeds and are applied to soil or sprayed on bee-attractive plants and cereals.

In recent years, bee numbers have plummeted in the Middle East, Europe and the US by up to 85 per cent in some areas.

Supporters of the ban argue the pesticides are harmful to bees, which account for 80 per cent of plant pollination by insects.

Without the bees, many crops would be unable to bear fruit or would have to be pollinated by hand.

Eight nations including the United Kingdom voted against the plan, agreeing with chemical companies that the scientific data is insufficient or inconclusive, while four countries abstained.

While opponents of the pesticides were jubilant with the decision, scientists remain divided on the relationship between bee health and pesticides.

"There's evidence both on the work we've done on the bee brain, where we can see a relevant concentration that bees should be exposed to actually cause major brain deficits," said Dr Chris Connolly from the University of Dundee who supports the theory that the chemicals harm bees.

"Work from Newcastle show that individual bees have trouble learning when they're exposed to field-relevant doses of the neonicotinoids and work from University of Stirling and Royal Holloway have shown that bumblebee colonies fail to flourish."

Meanwhile, the pesticide companies say it is not clear that damning laboratory results reflect what happens out in the paddock.

"This is a poor decision based on an incomplete scientific analysis," said Dr Mike Bushell, the principal scientific adviser for Syngenta, one of the two corporations that make the banned chemicals.

"The proposal that was put to a vote today... is based on an analysis that ignores the wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of the bees in practical use.

"The alternatives are going to be more difficult, they'll require more spraying to control insect pests and they'll be more costly.

"In addition, depending on how people manage their crops in the future, the yields will be between 10 and up to 40 per cent lower for key crops like oil seed rape."

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