PLEASE HELP – add your weight to the Petition.
April 29 – we celebrated European ability to get “neo nics” (pesticides that kill bees) banned in Europe. (http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=8974)
Today, the ban is in serious jeopardy because of the manoeuvres of the chemical corporations.
If you have questions, see the links at the bottom.
If we as global citizens cannot make the ban on these 3 chemicals that kill bees REAL in Europe, there will be little chance of getting these poisons stopped in Canada.
Killing off the pollinators is extremely bad and costly policy.
Thank-you for your consideration, and please forward to others.
/Sandra
NOTE: I would not have chosen the wording “incredible scam”, but I suppose that’s what it is.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
Right now in Brussels, an incredible scam is soon to take place that will harm bees, biodiversity… and all citizens who have been fighting for several years to ban bee killing pesticides in Europe and in every country in the world.
We must stop this action before it has dramatic consequences on the future of our farms and our food. PLEASE SIGN THE ENCLOSED EUROPEAN PETITION NOW AND PASS IT AROUND AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.
There is not one minute to lose!
After several years of relentless fighting from citizens and beekeepers, the European Commission has finally taken an official stand against three neonicotinoid pesticides which are extremely dangerous for bees (1).
Since Associations believed they had won, they had laid down their arms.
BUT …
In reality, the arrangement soon to be adopted by Brussels authorities is a disastrous compromise dictated by international agrochemical companies such as Bayer, Syngenta and such, which have been harshly lobbying for months in order to obtain such a result (2).
Their objective : to thwart the will of the european citizens and prevent a REAL ban on beekilling pesticides – against the specific advice from French and European Health Authorities (3)… IN ORDER TO HOLD ON TO THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF EUROS OF YEARLY PROFIT GAINED THROUGH THESE PRODUCTS BY THE COMPANIES PRODUCING THEM.
Those three pesticides will be officially banned for a trial period of two years at the end of which the sanitary authorities will decide whether the ban has had an effect on the slaughtering of the bees and if a definitive ban is to be ordered.
But this alleged interdiction cannot have any effect on the health of bees. BECAUSE THE THREE BEEKILLING PESTICIDES WILL BE BANNED ONLY A FEW MONTHS A YEAR AND WILL BE PROFUSELY USED THE REST OF THE TIME – on about 85% of grains and on a large portion of the crops of fruit , vegetable and aromatic herbs – thus widely poisoning the soil and water and later spreading to the so-called «untreated» farmland.
Several studies have shown that those ultra-toxic substances can still be present in the soil three years after a treatment has been done (4)AND THAT UNTREATED CROPS WHICH ARE PLANTED ANEW IN THE SAME SOIL SHOW TRACES OF NEONICOTINOIDES EVEN IN THEIR POLLEN… THAT BEES LATER COME TO COLLECT. (5)
A the end of the two-year trial test , the companies will be able to show that bees continue to be decimated in spite of the ban on their products and thus state that they are in no way responsible. They will have succeeded in using their products and hold on to their profits – for a very long time.
This diabolic plan can only bring an unprecedented environmental disaster.
It is still possible to prevent this disaster BUT ACTING QUICKLY IS URGENT. In a few days the European Commission will adopt the final version of the european rules concerning those three pesticides.
It is urgent to act before the Commission takes a stand, if we want to obtain A REAL BAN ON THOSE PESTICIDES. CLICK HERE NOW TO SIGN UP THE EUROPEAN PETITION AGAINST THE LOBBIES!
If we do not react now, this is what will happen in the next two years:
-Neonicotinoids will continue to be used on winter crops, thus deeply permeating soil and water.
– Untreated Spring and Summer crops will become infected by the remnants of those pesticides and will poison bees.
– Bee large-scale mortality will persist, despite the alleged ban on neonicotinoids.
Syngenta, Monsanto, Bayer and all the agrochemical laboratories will be able to claim that their products have no effect on bee mortality and will obtain the complete rehabilitation of those products on the market.
And there will be nothing left for us but to weep!
WE MUST NIP THIS DISASTROUS PLAN IN THE BUD AND DEMAND FROM THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION A STRAIGHTFORWARD BAN ON THOSE BEEKILLING PESTICIDES, AS THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IN FACT PRETENDS TO DO.
No more compromise, no more scheming…. If a two-year test is necessary to evaluate the real impact on pollinators of those pesticides, let us do it honestly, thoroughly!
According to INRA (the very official French Institue for Agronomical Research), farmers themselves would have nothing to lose from the test: pesticide consumption could be reduced by 30 to 40% without any reduction of their income – by simply getting back to rotating cultures that would quite effectively fight parasites while significantly reducing the use of chemical treatments(6).
Imagine, for France alone, there areover 20.000 tons of ultra-toxic substances which are unecessarily spread annually on our countryside!
The only ones suffering would be the agrochemical giant firms and their profits…But Nature is not concerned with profits!
SO PLEASE HELP POLLINIS IN CREATING A REAL SHOCK WAVE THROUGH ALL OF EUROPE TO COUNTER THE AGROCHEMICAL LOBBIES THAT ARE READY TO SACRIFICE YOUR HEALTH, YOUR FOOD AND EVEN NATURE IN THE YEARS TO COME SO AS TO HOLD ON TO THEIR IMMEDIATE PROFITS.
SIGN THIS PETITION AND SEND THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE AROUND YOU.
In advance, thank you!
Nicolas LAARMAN
National Secretary of Pollinis
If you want to know more on the subject :
1. The text of the European Comission banning three neonicotinoids :
http://www.pollinis.org/IMG/doc/regulation_commission_europeenne_interdiction_3_neonicotinoides.doc
2. The excellent report from the Corporate Union Observatory :
http://corporateeurope.org/publications/pesticides-against-pollinators
Or, here online, a good short resume in french from the Journal de l’Environnement .
3. In early 2013, a report from the European Authority on Food Security (EFSA) confirmed that neonicotinoides represent a major risk for bees and pollinators.
4. Neonicotinoids stick to the environment. Half the clothianidine life has been measured by the American Agency for Health Protection.
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/cleared_reviews/csr_PC-044309_2-Nov-10_b.pdf
See also the file published in 2010 by J.DeCant et M.Barrett in the review Environmental Protection (pp.1-99) : Environmental Fate et Ecological Risk Assessment for the Registration of CLOTHIANIDIN for Use as a Seed Treatment on Mustard Seed (Oilseed and condiment) and Cotton.
5. Nenonicotinoids have a persistent polluting effect on environment in the larger sense. notably on pollen. Imidaclopride for instance can be absorbed by untreated cultures as late as two years after being first utilised and still be found in toxic quantities in the pollen and nectar of flowers that were never treated.
In 2002 and 2003, 69.1% of the pollen collected by the bees of 25 hives in five french departments, on plants either treated or untreated , were contaminated by imidacloprid, though a ban on the utilization of this neurotoxine on sunflowers has been imposed in january 1999.
6. ECOPHYTO R & D file of INRA : « Reduction of pesticides ».
http://institut.inra.fr/Missions/Eclairer-decisions/Etudes/Toutes-les-actualites/Ecophyto-R-D
Pollinis – Réseau des Conservatoires Abeilles et Pollinisateurs
Association Loi 1901 Conservatoire des Fermes et de la Nature
143 avenue Parmentier – 75010 Paris www.pollinis.org
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