Archive for the 'United Nations' Category
12
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 12, 2024) In a year with 74 national elections on the calendar, legislators and executive branches alike are in contention on the future of business-as-usual pesticide use and manufacturing. Be it Kenya or Brazil, the European Union and Mercosur (South American Trade Bloc), there is a growing contingency of farmers, advocates, researchers, and public leaders who desire a pathway forward in strengthening pesticide restrictions and supporting alternatives to chemical-intensive agriculture and land management, including organic. As leadership shifts and domestic conversations mount ahead of the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan and the 2024 National Organic Standards Board meeting this fall, environmental and health advocates say it is vital that world leaders acknowledge the decades of grassroots advocacy and market development that led to the growth of organic systems in service of building capacity for nutrition, public health, biodiversity, and climate resilience while advancing food security. Kenya Earlier this month, the Kenyan parliament introduced a resolution to ban hazardous pesticides including glyphosate-based herbicide products such as RoundUp sold by Bayer/Monsanto, leading to a fiery debate on the state of agricultural uses. Hon. Gladys Boss, Deputy Speaker for the National Assembly, speaks to the rationale […]
Posted in International, Kenya, National Organic Standards Board/National Organic Program, Pesticide Regulation, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
16
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 16, 2024) The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) released a report, Food from Somewhere: Building food security and resilience through territorial markets, in July identifying the importance of moving beyond toxic chemical dependent, industrialized agriculture and toward âsourcing local and organic foodâ through alternative models, such as farmer and consumer-owned cooperatives, alternative certification schemes, and fostering relationships between organic producers and consumers through territorial markets. â[T]erritorial markets are closely associated with agroecology, and in many cases help to provide market outlets for farmers using natural fertilizers and pesticides that work with nature, rather than the fossil-fuel based synthetic inputs associated with corporate value chains,â the authors state and go on to advocate for transformative action based on various case studies rooted in organic principles and practices. Territorial markets are a nascent concept rooted in agroecology (“an integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems”) and political ecology, which depending on the perspective may have differing definitions. However, there are several commonly held principles of territorial markets that include ideas of âcloser to home,â âlargely or fully outside of corporate chains,â […]
Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Biodiversity, International, Madagascar, Seeds, soil health, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
19
Jul
Image: EneasMx, CC-BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons (Beyond Pesticides, July 19, 2024) Former mayor of Mexico City and climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum, PhD was elected President of Mexico on June 2, making her the first female and Jewish citizen to hold the highest political office in the nation. She will be inaugurated on October 1, 2024. Dr. Sheinbaumâs ascension to the presidency comes at a time of increasing pressure from the United States government to acquiesce to its demands to open agricultural markets to genetically engineered (GE) crops (particularly corn) and the use of the carcinogenic weed killer glyphosate. With the formal review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) approaching in 2026, Mexico will soon decide under Dr. Sheinbaumâs leadership whether it will be an international stalwart against the unfettered spread of GE corn amidst pressure from the U.S. Trade Representative and as industry continues to enable the cascading crises of the climate emergency, public health crisis, and biodiversity collapse. With new administrations in the United Kingdom and France, and the upcoming election in the U.S., how governments around the world, independently and collectively, choose to seriously confront or soft-pedal the existential environmental crises will determine the livability of […]
Posted in Drift, Genetic Engineering, Glyphosate, International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
05
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 5, 2024) After years of advocacy against corporate interference in global pesticide policy, the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) has ended its âstrategic partnershipâ with petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer trade association CropLife International. This decision, which allows the expiration of a 2020 Letter of Intent (LoI), was announced in a June press release by a coalition of international public interest, environmental, and trade groups. The organizations objected to the partnership from the inception of the agreement and has issued objections, including in 2022 and covered by Daily News. The signatories to the release last month believe that this severing of ties with the chemical industry will contribute to building momentum from frontline communities for âsustainable, resilient and equitable production systems under the agroecological paradigm.â The groups say, however, âWe remain concerned about the FAOâs continuing informal engagements with CropLife and call for greater transparency and accountability in this regard.” Beyond Pesticides has urged that models for change, whether advanced by FAO or other international or national institutions, must embrace clear definitions and standards that are certified and enforceable in order to reverse the existential threats to health, biodiversity, and climate from petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. […]
Posted in Announcements, International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
19
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 19, 2024) This month the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) announced the creation of a new initiative to combat the health and environmental impacts of toxic petrochemical pesticides in agriculture. Launched by seven countriesâEcuador, India, Kenya, Laos, Philippines, Uruguay, and Vietnamâthe Financing Agrochemical Reduction and Management (FARM) Programme is a $379 million initiative that âwill realign financial incentives to prevent the use of harmful inputs in food production.â This international cohort aims to phase out the use of âtoxic persistent organic pollutants (POPs)âchemicals which donât break down in the environment and contaminate air, water, and food.â The work of FARM echoes Beyond Pesticides call for the banning of toxic petrochemical pesticides by 2032. The program will help countries implement their commitment to eliminate POPs and plastics in agriculture. As it is described, âFARM…will support government regulation to phase out POPs-containing agrochemicals and agri-plastics and adopt better management standards, while strengthening banking, insurance and investment criteria to improve the availability of effective pest control, production alternatives and trade in sustainable produce.â The 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants requires signatories to adopt a range of measures to reduce and, where feasible, eliminate the release of POPs. All […]
Posted in Breakdown Chemicals, Chemicals, International, organochlorines, Plastic, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
08
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 8, 2024) Despite successful litigation that stopped the unnecessary use of an antibiotic (streptomycin) in citrus production in December 2023, the courtâs reasoning fails to grasp the science behind the biggest emerging threat to U.S. and global healthâantibiotic resistance. What is most disturbing and challenging is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), responsible for applying science in the protection of the publicâs health, misled the court on the overwhelming worldwide scientific consensus on the contribution of agricultural antibiotic use to the human death and disability rate linked to antibiotic resistance. On this subject, Beyond Pesticides has written extensively about horizontal gene transfer, which explains the movement of antibiotic resistant bacteria throughout the environment, ultimately making their way to people, as medically necessary drugs become ineffective. As weâve written, âThe human pathogenic organisms themselves do not need to be sprayed by the antibiotic because movement of genes in bacteria is not solely âvertical,â that is from parent to progenyâbut can be âhorizontalââ from one bacterial species to another.â [Regarding the reliance of the court on EPAâs misrepresentation of the science, the court found, âEPA emphasized that ‘there is no data that antibiotic use in agriculture leads to […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, Antimicrobial, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fungal Resistance, International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
05
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 5, 2023) The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) wrapped up in Dubai on December 13 with what some hailed as a breakthrough agreement among almost 200 countries to reduce fossil fuel consumption that signals âthe eventual end of the oil age.â To be successful and assure human survival, eliminating oil, gas, and coal use, Beyond Pesticides is calling for the elimination of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers and support for organic, regenerative agriculture around the world. Because of the insurmountable crises that are caused or exacerbated by petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, the adoption of organic land management practices and the need for foundational change in federal, state, and local policies and practices has come into focus. Under organic management, healthy soil can absorb and store 1,000 pounds of carbon per acre foot of soil annually. This translates to about 3,500 pounds of carbon dioxide per acre drawn down from the air and sequestered into organic matter in soil. (It is noteworthy that use of synthetic fertilizers actually compromises the carbon-capture ability of some kinds of terrain, such as salt marshes.) A fact often overlooked by policy makers in generating climate strategies is that carbon-sequestering soil practices […]
Posted in Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, Biodiversity, Climate, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
15
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 15, 2023) Drawing on a recent gathering of international scientists, a group of 34 scientists published a call for much stricter scrutiny of researchersâ conflicts of interest by agencies that regulate and register chemicals, with recommendations for the newly formed Intergovernmental Science Policy Panel. Writing in Environmental Science & Technology, the authors, led by Andreas Schäffer of Aachen University in Germany and Martin Scheringer of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, cite an abundance of examples of chemical companies and their trade associations manufacturing doubt via an array of techniques, resulting in agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dropping certain provisions from rulemaking, ignoring scientific consensus, and keeping chemicals on the marketâand in the environmentâthat many scientists say should be entirely banned. The authors produced the article in response to this webinar to discuss how to ensure that U.N. panels dealing with global crises get the most sound scientific advice conducted by the International Panel on Chemical Pollution. Over the last four decades or so, the notion that conflicts of interest affect the validity of scientific research and professional opinions has been steadily eroded. Regulators wallow in compromised research, hamstrung by political pressure and […]
Posted in Announcements, Chemicals, Corporations, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
19
Oct
(Beyond Pesticides, October 19, 2023) The second session of the 40th National Forum, Forging a Future with Nature, will focus on environmental justice and offer a unique conversation with the United Nations Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights and an environmental justice history professional. Both celebrated speakers have studied and written about the long-standing social, economic, and health problems related to pesticides and disproportionate harm to people of color. The Forum will take place at 2:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, October 24, 2023. (See free registration information HERE.)Â Â Beyond Pesticides brings together this Forum session with the inspiration of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who wrote in Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963), âInjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.â Sixty years later, people of colorâin the U.S. and around the worldâstill struggle with those same inequities that impose disproportionate risks interwoven in the fabric of economic and social systems in the United States and worldwide. The Forum takes place in the context of widespread toxic chemical exposure throughout communities and all strata […]
Posted in Announcements, Environmental Justice, International, United Nations | No Comments »
08
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 8, 2023) In a united effort, climate and environmental justice movements from around the world have come together to announce a global “end to fossil fuels,â including the end of pesticides. The “March to End Fossil Fuels” is scheduled for September 17 and the Secretary General’s Summit in New York City on September 20. See the full map for other marches around the world. At the Beyond Pesticides, 2022 National Forum session on climate (November, 2022), we discussed the science and the urgent need for a strategic response to the climate crisis as part of a constellation of crises that intersect. Whether we are talking about a health crisis borne out of chemical-induced diseases, the collapse of life-sustaining biodiversity, or the dramatic catastrophes caused by greenhouse gases and rising temperaturesâthe interconnectedness of the crises requires strategic solutions that are holistic and nurturing of our relationship with nature âa relationship we have minimized as a matter of policy and practice. The data on climate calls on us to be audacious in our demand for urgent change in our households and communities, and from decision makers at all levels of government. At Beyond Pesticides, our audacious goal is to […]
Posted in Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Children, Children/Schools, Climate, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Fertilizer, Household Use, Indigenous People, International, National Politics, New York, Oceans, Parks, Pesticide Drift, Pesticide Regulation, Pollinators, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
12
May
(Beyond Pesticides, May 12, 2023) With the growth of chemical-intensive land management over the last century, the world has been held captive by pesticide companies. For part of that time, it could be said the modern society has suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, a theory about abusive relationships in which one party exerts power over the other using threats, fear, and lies and the victim comes to depend on the perpetrator emotionally. During the so-called âGreen Revolutionâ (circa 1945-1985), the world came to depend on vast amounts of fertilizers and herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. Many people believed that food, clothing, and shelter made from naturally-occurring materials such as fruit, flax and wood could not be provided to the world without pesticides. It seemed that science and commerce could indefinitely raise the standard of living around the world, perhaps leading to world peace. This is not what happened. Soon observers noticed the harmful effects of many pesticides, including their persistence in the environment, their tendency to accumulate in the bodies of humans and wildlife, and their influence on the risk of contracting many diseases, from cancer to asthmaânot to mention the Darwinian inevitability of pest resistance. By the turn of the 20th […]
Posted in Agriculture, Chlordane, Dieldrin, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), International, Uncategorized, United Nations | 1 Comment »
13
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 13, 2023)Â The United Nations has just announced on March 4, 2023, an agreement on a new high seas treaty. The treaty, which must be adopted by member states and then ratified by at least 60 countries to take effect could be a critical development for meeting the UNâs COP15 â30 by 30â goal of protecting 30% of the worldâs land and sea by 2030 to slow and arrest global biodiversity losses. The treaty represents a step toward implementation of President Bidenâs âAmerica the Beautiful Initiativeâ set in 2021, proclaiming âthe first-ever national conservation goalâ established by a President âa goal of conserving at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.â However, he U.S. has a poor track record on approval of UN environmental treaties; approval requires a two-thirds majority affirmative vote in the Senate, and failure on that would block a Presidential signature and ratification. Meanwhile, a report just reissued by an international coalition of scientists led by Boston Collegeâs Global Public Health Program and Global Observatory on Planetary Health and the Centre Scientifique de Monaco documents the widespread and growing pollution of the ocean. The full report, âHuman Health and Ocean Pollution,â is […]
Posted in International, Oceans, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
10
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 10, 2023) Following years of discussions and negotiations, 193 United Nations member countries have just approved â for the first time â a draft treaty for protection of the globeâs âhigh seasâ and their denizens. The March 4 adoption of the draft marks the achievement of a potential legal framework for such protections, but is also the beginning of âa long journey to ensure the worldâs oceans are adequately protected for future generations,â according to coverage by NewScientist. As research out of Boston College identifies, our oceans are badly polluted by multiple substances â including pesticides and other agricultural runoff; industrial and petrochemical waste; and the synthetic chemicals embedded in plastics â that threaten human health. The treaty, which must be adopted by member states and then ratified by at least 60 countries to take effect could be a critical development for meeting the COP15 â30 by 30â goal of protecting 30% of the worldâs land and sea by 2030 to slow and arrest global biodiversity losses. Beyond Pesticides has long covered the ecological harms of ocean pollution. The treaty represents a step toward implementation of President Bidenâs 2021 âAmerica the Beautiful Initiative,â proclaiming âthe first-ever national conservation goalâ established […]
Posted in International, Oceans, Uncategorized, United Nations, Water | No Comments »
22
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 22, 2022) International health and environmental groups submitted an urgent letter to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) late last month demanding âgreater transparency and accountabilityâ through termination of the agencyâs two-year-old partnership with CropLife International (CLI), a global trade association representing the worldâs biggest pesticide manufacturers. Addressed to FAO Deputy Director Beth Bechdol ahead of FAO Council 171 session in Rome and COP15, the letter outlines a unique opportunity for the organization to lead the phaseout of fossil-fuel based food systems and use of agrochemicals while upholding the agencyâs responsibility to act in response to conflicts of interest and human rights violations.  The original Letter of Intent (LOI), signed between CLI President and CEO Guilia Di Tommaso and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu in October 2020, framed the partnership as a means to ensure humanityâs freedom from hunger while advancing Sustainable Development Goals. However, according to PAN Europe Policy Officer Manon Rouby, âWhile the private sector has been working with FAO for years, this official agreement with CropLife directly threatens FAOâs work on supporting farmers in the transition towards agroecology, while reducing the harms of synthetic pesticides worldwide. With CropLife members being the largest agrichemical […]
Posted in International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
09
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 9, 2022) Representatives from more than 195 countries have descended on Montreal for the December 7 start of COP15 â the United Nationâs (UNâs) Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The UN Development Programme sets out the context for this summit: âDespite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide, and this decline is projected to worsen with business-as-usual. The loss of biodiversity comes at a great cost for human well-being and the global economy.â Beyond Pesticides has documented many aspects of this decline in biodiversity, and the implications for ecosystem, human, and planetary health. In this COP15 context, the data points to the importance of broad adoption of organic regenerative / agroecological systems, which can very significantly address the interactive health, biodiversity, and climate crises. Close on the heels of Novemberâs UN COP27 summit on climate, COP15 has commenced, with the goal of adopting a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (CBF) to provide âa strategic vision and a global roadmap for the conservation, protection, restoration, and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems for the next decade.â The first such summit was called the Convention on Biological Diversity and was held in 1993. Out of […]
Posted in Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, Biodiversity, International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
15
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 15, 2022)Â Nature is too often sacrificed to a global and outsized focus on short-term profits and economic growth, according to a new report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The report warns that policy making, broadly, does not reflect the value of Natureâs roles in supporting human life and activity, never mind all the peripheral benefits (aesthetic, emotional, spiritual) people derive from the natural world. The report calls on leaders in all sectors to integrate the contributions of Nature in development and deployment of policy in a more-comprehensive way â as Le Monde writes, âbeyond being âa huge factory.ââ Beyond Pesticides offers a seminal reminder from Fred Kirschenmann, PhD: the prevailing philosophy of maximum efficient production for short-term economic return at the expense of Nature causes havoc in the world and will not work in the future; instead, we must develop a broad ecological conscience that guides all that we do. The reportâs Summary for Policymakers was approved on July 11 by representatives from 139 Member States; the report itself is the culmination of four years of effort by 82 collaborating scientists and experts from multiple disciplines. The same member […]
Posted in Biodiversity, International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
17
Jun
(Beyond Pesticides, June 17, 2022)Â Hundreds of civil society groups and organizations of indigenous people worldwide have called on the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to end its nearly two-year-old partnership with CropLife International, the trade association for the worldâs largest pesticide manufacturers. The organizationsâ June 9 letter to the Member State Representatives of the FAO Council was signed by 430 entities, from 69 different countries. The letter asserts that the UN agencyâs agreement with CropLife International (CLI) is incompatible with FAOâs obligations to uphold human rights, and urges it both to review the partnership agreement on the basis of human rights concerns, and to âconsider directing the Director-General of FAO to rescind the agreement.â The call comes from this huge group of advocates, but it is also coming from âinside the houseâ: UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri is one of the signatories; Beyond Pesticides is one among 65 U.S. signatories. CropLife Internationalâs corporate members â BASF, Bayer, Corteva, FMC, Sumitomo Chemical, and Syngenta â are huge synthetic pesticide companies with global reach. CLI also counts as members 11 subsidiary national associations in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, Canada, and the […]
Posted in International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
25
Feb
(Beyond Pesticides, February 25, 2022) Together, governments of the world over are spending at least $1.8 trillion annually â 2% of global gross domestic product â on subsidies that drive the destruction of ecosystems and species extinction, and exacerbate the climate crisis. This news comes from a study commissioned by The B Team and Business for Nature, and released in a joint brief, Financing Our Survival: Building a Nature Positive Economy through Subsidy Reform. The Business for Nature website offers a remedy to this entropy: âWith political determination and radical publicâprivate sector collaboration, we can reform these harmful subsidies and create opportunities for an equitable, nature-positive and net-zero economy.â To that end, the two organizations have issued, in their brief, calls to action to multiple sectors, including one to the governments participating in the coming UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15): âAdopt a clear and ambitious target within the Global Biodiversity Framework . . . that commits governments to redirect, repurpose, or eliminate all environmentally harmful subsidies by 2030 and increase positive incentives to enable an equitable, net-zero, nature-positive world.â A press release from The B Team reports that the fossil fuel, agriculture, and water sectors are the recipients of more than […]
Posted in Biodiversity, Climate Change, International, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
20
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 20, 2021)Â Scientists warn that humanity is causing the sixth mass extinction in the planetâs history. A series of reports from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) highlights how human activities threaten the healthy functioning of ecosystems that produce food and water, as well as one million species now at risk of extinction. The UNEP report, Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss, identifies the global food system as the primary driver of biodiversity loss. The report points to the conversion of natural ecosystems to crop production and pasture, with concomitant use of toxic chemicals, monoculture, and production of greenhouse gases. Â In view of the many steps that have been identified to stop both biodiversity loss and global climate change, it is beyond disappointing to see our âEnvironmental Protection Agencyâ continuing to allow use of chemicals that it recognizes will contribute to the problems. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the international legal instrument for “the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.” It has been ratified by 196 nationsâall the members of the United Nations […]
Posted in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), International, Uncategorized, United Nations, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. | No Comments »