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 »
