[Reproduced from Environment correspondent, BBC News]
Neonicotinoid pesticides are causing significant damage to a wide range of beneficial species and are a key factor in the decline of bees, say scientists.
Researchers, who have carried out a four-year review of the literature, say the evidence of damage is now "conclusive".
The scientists say the threat to nature is the same as that once posed by the notorious chemical DDT.
Manufacturers say the pesticides are not harming bees or other species.
Neonicotinoids were introduced in the early 1990s as a replacement for older, more damaging chemicals.
They are a systemic insecticide, meaning that they are absorbed into every cell in a plant, making all parts poisonous to pests.
But some scientists have been concerned about their impact, almost since the moment they were introduced.
Much of the worry has surrounded their effects on bees.
There's been a well documented, global decline in these critical pollinators.
Many researchers believe that exposure to neonicotinoids has been an important destabilising factor for the species.
'Worldwide impacts'
In 2011, environmental campaigners, the IUCN, established an international scientific taskforce on systemic pesticides to look into the impacts of these chemicals.
The members have reviewed over 800 peer reviewed papers that have been published in the past 20 years.
Their assessment of the global impact says the threat posed goes far beyond bees.
In their report, to be published next month, they argue that neonicotinoids and another chemical called fipronil are poisoning the earth, the air and the water.
The pesticides accumulate in the soil and leach into water, and pose a significant problem for earthworms, freshwater snails, butterflies and birds.
The researchers say that the classic measurements used to assess the toxicity of a pesticide are not effective for these systemic varieties and conceal their true impact.
They point to one of the studies in the review carried out in the Netherlands.
It found that higher levels of neonicotinoids in water reduced the levels of aquatic invertebrates, which are the main prey for a whole range of species including wading birds, trout and salmon.
"There is so much evidence, going far beyond bees," Prof Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex told BBC News.
"They accumulate in soils, they are commonly turning up in waterways at levels that exceed the lethal dose for things that live in streams.
"It is impossible to deny that these things are having major environmental impacts."
DDT comparison
The scientists are very worried about the prophylactic use of neonicotinoids, where seeds are coated in the chemicals and the plant grows up with the ability to destroy pests already built in.
"It is a bit like taking antibiotics to avoid getting ill," said Prof Goulson, one of a team of 29 scientists involved in the research.
"The more they are used, the stronger the selective pressure you place on pest insects to become resistant to them. Using them as prophylactics is absolute madness in that sense."
The task force argues that with neonicotinoids and fipronil making up around a third of the world market in insecticides, farmers are over-relying on them in the same way as they once became over reliant on chemicals like DDT.
"We have forgotten those lessons and we're back to where we were in the 1960s," said Prof Goulson.
"We are relying almost exclusively on these insecticides, calendar spraying 20 times or more onto a single field, it's a completely bonkers way."
While neonicotinoids don't accumulate in human or animal tissue in the way that DDT once did, the modern pesticides are more lethal, about 6,000 time as toxic compared to the older spray.
Representatives of manufacturers say that there is nothing new in the task force study.
"There is very little credible evidence that these things are causing untoward damage because we would have seen them over 20 years of use," said Dr Julian Little from Bayer, one of the manufacturers of neonicotinoids.
"If you look at the tree bumblebee, it is eating the same food as the other bees, and is being exposed to the same pesticide load and weather conditions and yet it is flourishing, whereas some other bees are not.
"If it were pesticides causing the mass destruction of our fauna, surely you would see effects on all bees?"
The European Crop Protection Association said the task force was being selective in their evidence, pointing to recent studies carried out by industry showing that the declines in bee populations have been overstated.
"We respect the scientists who have produced this research, but it appears that they are part of a movement that brings together some academics and NGOs whose only objective is to restrict or ban the use of neonicotinoid technology regardless of what the evidence may show," a spokesperson said.
Europe already has a two-year moratorium in place meaning that neonicotinoids can't be used on flowering crops such as oilseed rape.
Last week, President Obama announced the creation of a pollinator health task force to look at the impact of pesticide exposure on bees and other insects.
Prof Goulson says that he isn't in favour of a ban.
"We have been using these things for 20 years and there's not a single study that shows they increase yield," he said.
"I'm not personally in favour of an outright ban but I think we should use them much more judiciously - if they don't benefit yield we should stop using them."
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Last updated 14/06/2014 00:16 BRT
Environment reporter, BBC News
Researchers found the amount of food available affected the size of young fish and influenced the number that went on to reach adulthood.Deforestation is reducing the amount of leaf litter falling into rivers and lakes, resulting in less food being available to fish, a study suggests.
The team said the results illustrated a link between watershed protection and healthy freshwater fish populations.
The findings have been published in Nature Communications.
"We found fish that had almost 70% of their biomass made from carbon that came from trees and leaves instead of aquatic food chain sources," explained lead author Andrew Tanentzap from the University of Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences.
"While plankton raised on algal carbon is more nutritious, organic carbon from trees washed into lakes is a hugely important food source for freshwater fish, bolstering their diet to ensure good size and strength," he added.
Size matters
Dr Tanentzap observed: "Where you have more dissolved forest matter you have more bacteria, more bacteria equals more zooplankton.
"Areas with the most zooplankton had the largest, fattest fish," he added, referring to the study's results.
The team of scientists from Canada and the UK collected data from eight locations with varying levels of tree cover around Daisy Lake, Canada, which forms part of the boreal ecosystem.
The data revealed that where there was more forest cover, the fish were fatter than fish found in areas with few or no trees.They focused on young-of-the-year (YOY) (individuals born within the past 12 months) yellow perch (Perca flavescen), a widely distributed species, because it was "an important sport and commercial species throughout North America".
generally, the more forest cover around the edge the lake, the fish in that area were larger than young fish found in area with little or no forest cover.
The researchers added: "Our results also have consequences beyond YOY fish because recruitment into adult fish stocks and subsequent population dynamics are strongly size-dependent in perch and other species."
Dr Tanentzap added that the findings could also have implications for human food security.
"It's estimated that freshwater fishes make up more than 6% of the world's annual animal protein supplies for humans - and the major and often only source of animal protein for low income families across Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.
"While we've only studied boreal regions, these results are likely to bear out globally.
"Forest loss is damaging aquatic food chains of which many humans are a part."
[Reproduced from NEW SCIENTIST]
They may be the cutest World Cup mascots ever. But three-banded armadillos (Tolypeutes tricinctus) from Caatinga in north-east Brazil are being crowded out of their habitat by an invasive weed. The armadillo was today described as "vulnerable" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which has updated its Red List of endangered species.
The rubbervine weed (Cryptostegia madagascariensis), also known as devil's claw, was originally imported from Madagascar as an ornamental plant. It has swept through the armadillo's shrub-land home, killing native trees and smothering vast areas. Control of the weeds is doubly difficult because it rapidly forms dense thickets of vegetation, and exudes toxic sap.
The IUCN says the armadillo has declined by more than a third over the past 10 to 15 years, because its shrub-land habitat has shrunk by 50 per cent.
To combat the weed, a research group called CABI based in Wallingford, UK, has joined forces with Brazilian partners to develop a biological programme to control the weed, possibly using a fungus. In a similar project in Queensland, Australia, CABI successfully controlled a closely related rubbervine weed using a rust fungus.
Dick Shaw of CABI says that the Brazilian invasion has not yet reached its full extent, so there is still time to act. "If no action is taken, a valuable resource and unique ecosystem will be lost to Brazil and the world," he says.
It's about the water! An Israeli Black Hawk helicopter lands in the well-watered Golan Heights, annexed by Israel from Syria in 1981. Photo: Sgt. Ori Shifrin / Israel Defense Forces via Flickr.
Garikai Chengdu
4th June 2014
Water is to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th ... the commodity that determines the wealth and stability of nations, writes Garikai Chengdu. Welcome to a new age of hydro-imperialism that is upon us right now in Syria, Israel, Iraq, Libya ...
Western nations stand to make up to a US$1 trillion from privatizing, purifying and distributing water in a region where water often sells for far more than oil.
People who think that the West's interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria are only about oil are mistaken. Broadly speaking, Western interest in the Middle East is becoming increasingly about a commodity more precious than oil, namely water.
According to the US-based Center for Public Integrity, Western nations stand to make up to a US$1 trillion from privatizing, purifying and distributing water in a region where water often sells for far more than oil.
Although over two thirds of our planet is water, we face an acute shortage. This scarcity flies in the face of our natural assumptions. The problem is that 97% is salt water. Great for fish, not so good for humans.
Demand outstripping supply ...
Of the world's fresh water, only 1% is available for drinking, with the remaining 2% trapped in glaciers and ice. Put differently: if all the water on earth was represented by an 11-litre jug, the freshwater would fill a single cup, and we can only access the last drop.
Nature has decreed that the supply of water is fixed. All the while, demand is rising as the world's population increases and enriches itself. By 2030, climate change, population growth, pollution and urbanization will compound, such that the demand for water globally is estimated to outstrip supply by 40%.
Increasingly, for water to be useful, it needs to be mined, processed, packaged, and transported, just like gold, coal, gas or oil. Unlike oil, there are no substitutes, alternatives or stopgaps for water.
First gold. Then oil. And now, it's water ...
There have been three waves of resource-driven imperialism in the modern era.
A quest for gold fueled the first wave. Old-fashioned colonialists, regal and unembarrassed, rode in on horseback, brutally took control of American territories, sent in ostrich-plumed governors, minted coins with the Queen's head on them, and gazed proudly over natives toiling away in perilous mine-shafts.
An unprecedented kidnapping of millions of Africans ensued, so as to replace the indigenous Americans that had initially been exterminated by their European conquerors. This coincided with white pioneers brutally conquering Southern Africa, also in search of gold.
The second wave of imperialism has been driven by an unquenchable, post-industrial thirst for oil.
Modern petro-imperialism, the key aspect of which is the US military's transformation into a global oil-protection armed force, puts up a democratic facade, emphasizes freedom of the seas (or pipeline routes), and seeks to secure, protect, drill, and ship oil, not to administer everyday affairs.
Nevertheless, the means by which the US is centering its foreign policy around oil is hardly new in spirit, albeit unprecedented in scope.
A third stage of imperialism
The third wave of imperialist wars is currently being fought over nature's most valuable commodity: water. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, CIA analysts reported on a prediction of a new theater of war: hydrological warfare, "in which rivers, lakes and aquifers become national security assets to be fought over, or controlled".
These predictions became realized in quick succession, beginning with the recent wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria. It is now clear that the age of hydro-imperialism is upon us.
Iraq, Bechtel, and the $100 billion water contract
On April 17, 2003, in Iraq, the American company Bechtel received a no-bid reconstruction contract from US Agency for International Development (USAID) for US$100 billion; thus, making it the largest Iraq reconstruction contract.
Therefore, the most lucrative Iraq reconstruction contract was not used to repair oil facilities, build schools and hospitals, or to repair bombarded infrastructure: it was used to source, process, and distribute water.
The secretive, opaque and no-bid nature of the water contract award process is made even worse by one incredible fact. Bechtel has botched many of its previous projects.
In California, Bechtel installed one of the nuclear power plant reactors backwards. In Boston, what promised to be a US$2.5 billion job for an infamous 'Big Dig' project became the most expensive in US history, costing US$14.6 billion. The tunnel project was plagued by charges of poor execution, corruption, criminal arrests, and even four deaths.
In Bolivia, Bechtel's record is one of privatizing water by inflating prices by 35%. The inflation caused public riots, in which several people died. Bechtel was ousted from the country and tried to sue the Bolivian government for canceling their contract.
Libya and the Nubian Aquifer
Since the turn of the century, Iraq was the first casualty of hydro-imperialism, and Colonel Gaddafi's assassination marked the second. Libya sits atop a natural resource more valuable than oil: the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, which is a vast underground reserve of fresh water, estimated to be the largest in the world.
Col. Gaddafi had invested $25 billion into the aquifer, which had the potential to turn a country that is 95% desert into an arable oasis. As it now stands, France's global mega-water companies: Suez, Ondeo, and Saur, control almost half of the world's $400 billion water market.
They are poised to rake in billions of dollars from Libya's eighth wonder of the world.
Mr. Gaddafi had intended the scheme to be designed by Libyans, constructed by Libyans, for the benefit of the Libyan population.
Now it is being redesigned by Frenchmen and women at inflated costs, constructed by French contractors, largely for the benefit of French shareholders. Libyan taxpayers will undoubtably be stuck with the bill and higher water bills.
Syria's 'existential threat' to Israel
The most recent case of hydro-imperialism is the war in Syria. Israel has been leading a Western campaign to support Syrian rebels - in part, because its leaders assert that the Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, poses an existential threat to Israel on the issue of water.
Mr. Assad has vowed to reclaim the Golan Heights - a strip of land that Israel captured from Syria in the Six Day War of 1967. The Golan Heights provides a staggering 40% of Israel's fresh water.
"Syrian control of half of our water poses more of a threat than Iran with one bomb",once remarked ex-Israeli intelligence head, Meir Dagan.
Mr. Assad has also been reticent to privatize the water industry and expose the population to predatory pricing, thereby preventing the West from tapping into a multi-billion dollar revenue stream.
Mr. Assad's refusal to play ball on water privatization and his choice to play hardball over the Golan Heights meant that the Syrian President, like Mr. Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi before him, is an obstacle to the West's hydro-imperialist agenda.
Control of nature's most precious and increasingly valuable commodity will, for any nation, spell the difference between greatness and decline. Mr. Hussein, Colonel Gaddafi and a defiant Mr. Assad know that all too well.
Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University.
This article originally appeared on CounterPunch.
