Canadian Authorities Refuse to Protect Precious Pollinators From Known Toxins. Is Something Crooked Going on Here?
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| Bumblebees forage on organic chives. A PinP photo |
For way too many years
now, they and their political masters have been stubbornly refusing to protect
our precious plant pollinators such as bees from known toxins.
Isn’t it high
time we found out why?
It’s gotten to the point
where, to me, the failure of these individuals to lift a finger to save
collapsing world populations of these creatures, borders on the criminal. It
even smacks of collusion between them and the agro-chemical industry.
For years, scientific
research teams both far and near, have been documenting dwindling numbers, even
extinctions, of several populations of honey bees and bumble bees.
Scores of reputable
groups, including The Canadian Pollination Institute (CANPOLIN), the Xerces
Society and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the ‘States, are all
sounding the same alarm;
“The diversity and
abundance of insect pollinators are in a global state of decline. This decline
represents a serious threat to the integrity of natural ecosystems and the
production of many crops.”
Xerces has been devoted to
preserving habitat for invertebrates since 1971. It stresses, the importance of
pollinators is not to be underestimated.
“Bees are undoubtedly the
most abundant pollinators of flowering plants in our environment. The services
that bees and other pollinators provide, account for over 30 percent of the
foods and beverages that we consume.”
So Who or What is to
Blame?
Many culprits are
suspected in the deaths of pollinators. They include mites, pathogens, habitat
loss, diet, stress and climate change.
But, for years, a common
thread has woven its way through the scientific studies; several pesticides
used by conventional farmers and beekeepers to control crop pests and mites
which prey on the bees.
According to NAS, these
products “Kill or weaken thousands of honey bee colonies in the US each year.
Pesticides can potentially harm many bee species and even eliminate some
pollinator populations in ecosystems.”
Just last week, a British
newspaper, the Guardian, reported US honey bee colonies had suffered another
catastrophic winter loss of over one third! That’s the fourth straight year of
similar losses.
Corresponding numbers for
Canadian beekeepers are expected soon.
While it cannot be proven
conclusively, NAS says pollen from genetically-modified crops may even be
affecting the “behaviour, physiology and reproduction” of honey bees and even
the quality of the finished product, honey!
None of this has prevented
millions of acres of farmland from being sewn each year to GMOs.
On the Canadian prairies
alone, GMO canola is so dominant it has wiped out the market for organic
farmers by contaminating their fields with its pollen.
And, oh, by the way, GMO
corn, sugar beets, soy, alfalfa and possibly even wheat, are either already
licensed, or ready to be rubber-stamped by our “regulators.”
Xerces calls certain
insecticides “highly toxic to bees” and blames them for “most of the bee
poisonings in the Pacific Northwest.” (Both US & Canada.)
Is this just a faraway
problem? Not really.
In 2006, one product
blacklisted by Xerces, chlorpyrfos (Lorsban) was used to combat an outbreak of
bertha armyworms in canola crops in western Manitoba. It was sprayed from the
air over a vast area near Roblin and Swan River. It even made some people sick.
(True to form, nothing was done about that.)
Needless to say, its
impact on pollinators was neither considered beforehand, nor investigated
afterward.
In 2008, another product
singled out by Xerces, clothianidin, (Poncho) killed billions of honey bees in Europe. After that, several
countries banned or suspended its use there. But not Canada.
Here, it is commonly used
to treat canola seed. Scientists call it a “systemic” poison, which gets into
all parts of a plant; the stem, root, leaves, flowers, nectar and pollen (which
the bees gather and eat).
The bulk of honey produced
here in Manitoba comes from bees that forage on canola.
Then, a couple of years
ago, our regulators added insult to injury. They licensed yet another, similar
product, spirotetramat (Movento). Beekeepers fear it is even deadlier than its
predecessors! (See Manitoba Co-Operator, Oct. 9-’08, “New Systemic Insecticide
Worries Beekeepers.”)
In the US, a judge
recently ordered spirotetramat removed from the market. But not in Canada.
Then, last summer, the
Monsanto Corporation helped write another sad chapter in this sordid tale.
Monsanto and its
co-inventor, Dow AgroScience, announced the arrival of a new GM crop in Canada
and the US, “SmartStax” corn.
It contains a witches brew
of additives including cleverly-manipulated genes and clothianidin, one of the
most notorious bee-killers in the chemical-makers’ arsenal.
The government’s Food
Inspection Agency authorized its release without even conducting an
environmental risk assessment. Neither Health Canada nor its “Pesticide
Management Regulatory Agency” bothered to look into any impact the new product
might have on human health or safety.
In so doing, they violated
the spirit of “Codex,” an international food safety treaty which Canada helped
to negotiate.
Codex warns that
“unintended effects” may arise from consumption of products made the way
“Smartstax” is made, and ought to go through a full safety assessment. That, of
course, was never done.
So what is going on here?
Might the giant chemical
companies actually be greasing the palms of bureaucrats and even their
political masters to get them to do their bidding?
I have no idea. And I’m not saying that they are.
What I am saying
is, what other explanation makes sense? Why is no one stepping up to explain
this baffling, misplaced loyalty to the corporations rather than to we, the
people who elected them?
After all, if there is
something crooked going on, it wouldn’t be the first time.
A few years ago, the US
government sued Monsanto $1.5 million for bribing Indonesian officials to
license its GMO cotton in that country. (Ironically, cotton, too, needs bee
pollination to produce.)
In the late 90’s, Monsanto
actually offered Health Canada a bribe of up to $2 million to approve its
bovine growth hormone here. It was rejected, but only after senate hearings and
accusations from government scientists who actually had a conscience. They
complained they were being pressured by their bosses to fast-track approval of
the hormone, despite evidence that it was harmful to both cattle and humans.
My own province, Manitoba,
concedes that “certain bee species are declining.” But, in an email from the
office of the Minister in charge of the Environment, Bill Blaikie, I was told
that, “a lack of information on most species makes assessing their conservation
status difficult if not impossible.”
Difficult if not
impossible? With a defeatist attitude like that, what hope is there?
About a month go, I asked
my own Member of Parliament, Inky Mark, why chemicals harmful to pollinators
keep getting approved. He still hasn’t answered!
He did, however, vote the
other day in the Commons with the biotech industry and against a progressive
private members bill. If passed, it would force the government, before
rubber-stamping any more GMO crops, to think about how farmers’ pocketbooks
might be hurt if other countries won’t buy those crops.
(Keep in mind GMOs lead to
more pesticides use and, of course, more bucks for the corporations.)
If the industry truly
believed the propaganda it spews out, that it works “with nature” and for
“sustainable agriculture”, it would surely put an immediate halt to the
production of these evil concoctions.
To be sure, not all the
pieces of the "pollinator-decline"puzzle have yet been found. But why
do they have to be? Does every “t” have to be crossed and every “i” dotted
before anything is done?
I would submit that more
than enough is now known about pesticides to act, either by banning or at least
replacing the worst offenders.
Call me crazy, but would
this not relieve at least one point of pressure from these embattled creatures?
Meanwhile, Canada’s PMRA
clings stubbornly to its denial line. In a recent message to me, the agency’s
Chief Registrar, Marion Law, insists Movento, specifically, "underwent
'rigorous scientific review' and was shown to pose 'no unacceptable risk' to
humans, the environment, or bees!"
Really!
Few people would be so
naïve as to think that pollinators are the only creatures in mortal danger on
this planet. Smarter people than I claim we are now living through the worst
era of mass extinction since the dinosaurs! But, if the prospective loss of
pollinators, which help us produce the very food we need to survive, does not
move us to action, what the Hell will?
Might now be the time for
a judicial inquiry to shake some answers loose?
As long as our government
officials continue to spew out little more than “don’t worry, be happy”
platitudes as some sort of pitiful response to this looming global catastrophe,
I believe that it is time!
