France: a report highlights the contamination of the environment by pesticides
A tractor sprays a vineyard with agrochemicals near Carcassone, southern France, on August 6, 2020. AFP - GEORGES GOBET
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
A report released Thursday, May 5 by Inrae and Ifremer, public research institutes specializing in agriculture and the sea, underlines the reality of the contamination of the environment by pesticides, and the negative impact on the biodiversity and ecosystems.
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"
Our objective with this type of expertise is to make visible, intelligible, for public decision-makers, all the knowledge to inform decisions and improve regulations
", explained Thierry Caquet during a press conference. , Scientific Director of Environment at Inrae.
Carried out at the request of three ministries, the Ministries of Ecology, Agriculture and Research, this meta-analysis mobilized for two years around forty experts who reviewed some 4,000 scientific studies already published , in a French or comparable context, to summarize knowledge on the impact of plant protection products (PPP) on biodiversity and ecosystems.
►Also read: Glyphosate residues found in the urine of 99.8% of French people tested
It intervenes in a context of reflection on
the use of pesticides
.
Since the Grenelle Environment Forum at the end of 2007, which had set a target of reducing the use of synthetic pesticides by 50% in ten years, successive plans have failed.
At EU level, a proposal is under consideration to halve the use of pesticides by 2030.
Contamination that affects all environments
The last reports of this type dated from 2005 and 2008. Today, "
the image is much more precise of this contamination, due in particular to the densification of the surveillance networks, but also to the improvement of sampling techniques or analysis
", explains Wilfried Sanchez, Deputy Scientific Director of Ifremer.
The observation: contamination that affects all environments, concerns not only a variety of active substances, but also transformation products, adjuvants and co-formulants, even if the latter are less sought after.
The concentration is found mainly in agricultural areas, where the products are used, and spreads "
along the land-sea continuum to reach the oceans, with a decrease in concentrations by a dilution effect
", describes Wilfried Sanchez.
Contamination can persist, even if it decreases over time, as shown by the sometimes persistent presence of products that are currently prohibited, for example DDT, lindane, diuron.
There are different factors affecting biodiversity: climate change, exploitation of resources, modification and destruction of natural habitats.
"
Available studies published over the past 20 years allow us to assert in a robust way that plant protection products are one of the major causes of the decline of certain populations
", emphasizes Stéphane Pesce, specialist in ecotoxicology at Inrae.
Among the species affected, there are, for example, terrestrial invertebrates, including pollinating insects such as bees or beetles that prey on certain pests, as well as birds.
Some of the synthetic products “
contribute strongly to the risk
” of extinction which weighs on 9 to 15% of the species listed in Europe, he insisted.
(
With
AFP)
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