Dave Goulson: Bees, pesticides and politics

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Helen Clark

Last Friday night we went to the last talk in a series of science talks at the University of Derby. Closing the programme was Dave Goulson, a British biologist, conservationist, and Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex.
I was aware of the plight of the bees before the talk but didn’t really know why the bees were suffering. Dave’s talk was detailed but given in a really friendly and understandable way. There are several contributors to the decline in numbers of bees: habitat loss; disease; and pesticides. Whilst the talk was most mostly about bees, it also included other farmland wildlife that is struggling including birds, butterflies and moths.
One of the main things that stood out in the talk was that scientific studies are quite often undertaken by the companies selling the products. This means that the outcomes could be interpreted in a biased way. Also the pesticides being used on agricultural land are not necessarily effective to the crops they are designed to treat. With seeds that have pesticide coatings, only 5% of the pesticide goes into the crop, 1% is dust while the other ~94% goes into the soil where it accumulates over time.

https://www.ablewild.com/journal/events/dave-goulson-bees-pesticides-and-politics/