For the third year in a row, the Government have announced their decision to authorise a banned neonicotinoid pesticide for use on sugar beet grown in the UK this year. As well as being disastrous for wildlife, their decision has once again gone against the advice given by their own experts, who recommended that the authorisation should not go ahead. It also comes barely a month after the UK made a commitment to halve the environmental impacts of damaging pesticides by 2030, and just days after the EU’s highest court ruled that EU countries will no longer be allowed temporary exemptions for banned neonicotinoid pesticides like this one. Here, Joe Llanos, Policy & Information Officer, explores this issue further.
What are neonicotinoids and why do they matter?
Neonicotinoids, or ‘neonics’, are a group of pesticides that include the chemical thiamethoxam, the subject of the Government’s latest authorisation. Neonics were once widely used in the UK, until a growing body of scientific evidence highlighted the damaging impact that they were having on our pollinators. After years of campaigning and public pressure, these chemicals were banned for outdoor use in 2018, with the then Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, concluding “we cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk”.