The German government will introduce a law to restrict light pollution and limit the use of pesticides in order to preserve insects. Environmental associations welcome this initiative but believe that the government is not going far enough by not immediately banning the use of certain herbicides such as the controversial glyphosate.
This bill presented Wednesday by the Minister of the Environment Svenja Schulze, and of which AFP has obtained a copy, is the concretization of a set of measures presented by the German government in mid-September in favor of animal welfare and consumer information.
Bright projectors in the garage
In practice, the use of powerful outdoor lighting projectors, called a skytracer - used at local events and entertainment to signal from afar the location of an activity, such as a disco - will be limited. Considered to be particularly harmful to avifauna, they will be prohibited during the main periods of bird migration in spring and autumn, namely from February 1 to May 30 and from July 15 to December 15, from sunset to sunrise.
Street lighting will also need to be reduced in the future to cause as little damage as possible to animals and plants. In nature reserves, new lampposts, lighting of paths and illuminated display panels will only be authorized in areas without construction and only on an exceptional basis.
Glyphosate still in place
In order to better protect insects, herbicides may also not be used within 10 meters of a large body of water, a distance reduced to five meters if the watercourse is permanently covered with vegetation. Some insecticides will now be banned from nature reserves and national parks, a decision supported by environmental associations who regret that the bill does not go further.
"Protecting insects without reducing the use of pesticides in agriculture is insufficient", criticized the NGO Nabu. For BUND, this is “a first step but far from sufficient”. The environmental associations consider too late the German will to ban from the end of 2023 the use of the controversial herbicide glyphosate.
In Germany, biologists sound the alarm about the vertiginous fall, partly due to herbicides, of insect populations, disrupting ecosystems, in particular the pollination of plants. In addition to its harmful action on insects, glyphosate has become a societal issue after its classification as a "probable carcinogen" in May 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an organ of the WHO.
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- Glyphosate
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- Insect
- Germany