Badger campaigners intellectually dishonest

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Kevin Heath

Finally a number of the memos and letters written by Prince Charles to the government have finally been published . The memos cover a wide range of topics including farming and the environment. One exchange of letters covered subjects as diverse as hill farms, lynx helicopters in Iraq and the badger cull.

The exchange was with Prime Minister Tony Blair and in relation to Tb in cattle the Prince of Wales said he could not understand the badger lobby and termed them as intellectually dishonest.

The remark was made in a letter dated 24th February 2005 and was in relation to the Prince commenting on how anti-cull campaigners were happy to see the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle while objecting to the cull of an over-population of badgers.

In the same letter he referred to the success of the badger cull that had been undertaken in the Republic of Ireland which at the time was claimed to have produced a 96% reduction in the occurrence of Tb in cattle.

The letter tells Tony Blair that Prince Charles and food producers were concerned over the future due to the levels of Tb. At the time of the letter the government were in the process of producing a 10 year action plan on tackling the incidence of Tb in cattle.

Prince Charles urged Tony Blair to implement a full scale badger cull in the UK to replicate the success of the Republic of Ireland.

It is at this point that Prince Charles wrote:

“I, for one, cannot understand how the “badger lobby” seem to mind not at all about the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an 0ver-population of badgers – to me, this is intellectually dishonest“

Continued ...

Private letters shows pesticide companies desperate attempt to protect bee-killing pesticides.

Evidence mounting against neonicotinoids

April 2013. Late last week the Corporate Europe Observatory, a research group which works to improve the transparency in European policy making, published private letters from Syngenta and Bayer. The contents of these showed the pesticide companies forceful lobbying against a proposed European ban on neonicotinoids, a group of pesticides shown to have harmful effects on wildlife.

‘Fault lay with the farmers and not with the chemicals'
One of the letters from Bayer was addressed to European Commissioner, John Dalli, advising him that where countries had experienced honeybee deaths en mass, the fault lay with the farmers and not with the chemicals themselves. This is contradictory to the findings of the member states involved, each one placing a ban on certain uses for neonicotinoids as a result of these incidents.

Facts v lobbying
Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South-East England said "Bayer and Syngenta are looking increasingly desperate in their attempts to undermine the regulation of pesticides they produce. Unfortunately for them facts speak more loudly than all their corporate lobbying and the evidence in favour of banning Neonicotinoid use looks increasingly convincing".

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) report
Earlier this year, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a report which reviewed the scientific literature surrounding risks to pollinators from the neonicotinoids, Imidacloprid, Thiamethoxam and Clothianidin. This independent scientific group which advises the European Commission, found that these toxic chemicals were a high risk to honeybees.

Bayer criticized the findings, maintaining that it "overstates the risks to honey bees". The press release accompanying the reports stated that these risks were not acceptable which Syngenta took offence to, asking the Director of EFSA to change it before being made public, and threatening legal action if they did not comply.

Vanessa Amaral-Rogers, Buglife's Pesticides Officer said "Neonicotinoids have been the focus of many recent studies published in esteemed journals such as Nature and Science. Even small amounts of the chemical have been found to have harmful effects on our wildlife. It's time that our Government takes action to suspend these lethal insecticides immediately".

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/pesticide-bees.html