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Friends of the Earth
By Eric Hoffman
Last month, I sent an email encouraging Friends of the Earth activists to call on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reject the plan to release these GE mosquitoes in Key West. Our members and supporters sent more than 17,200 messages asking the FDA to reject the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes and any genetically engineered animals in the U.S. until we have laws on the books to ensure public health and safety are protected.
Meanwhile, a Key West resident and mother of three had created her own petition at Change.org with a similar request: that the FDA “stop the experimental release of (GM) mosquitoes in the Florida Keys.” The petition has started taking off, garnering more than 95,600 signatures as of July 11.
That means that, combined, the FDA has received more than 112,000 comments from Florida residents and people across the country who do not want potentially harmful genetically engineered mosquitoes released into their communities or anywhere in the U.S.
According to the Guardian in the UK:
Mila de Mier, the author of the petition, began the campaign because she said she was worried about the lack of scientific understanding of what the insects could do to the delicate ecosystem of the Florida Keys. She accused Oxitec, the UK-based biotech firm that has developed the mosquito, of failing to listen to local wishes.
"We need more data. If something goes wrong the consequences could be catastrophic not only for humans but also the whole ecosystem, and I don't want my family being used as laboratory rats for this," de Mier told the Guardian.
Local papers have taken notice as well. "The Florida Keys is a beautiful place, and it's my home," de Mier told ClickOrlando, a local CBS News affiliate. "We won't be lab rats just so this company can make money. Oxitec says we have to do this to control mosquitoes, but it's just not true. Other methods of mosquito control are working. We don't need to gamble with mutant mosquitoes."
For more information on why these mosquitoes have been genetically engineered and what they are supposed to do, check out our blog post and issue brief. For more on why the FDA is reviewing this application—and why this is a big problem—check out our recent blog post here.
And, if you haven’t already, be sure to send your own message to the FDA in solidarity with Mila and other Keys residents speaking out for the health and safety of their community. You can use Friends of the Earth’s form to personalize a sample message to the FDA or head over to Mila’s petition, which is also copied to Florida regulators.
Visit EcoWatch's GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM and BIODIVERSITY pages for more related news on these topics.
Farms with just one or a handful of different crops encourage fewer species of pollinating and pest-controlling insects to linger, ultimately winnowing away crop yields, according to a new study.
Up to half of the detrimental impacts of the "landscape simplification" that monocropping entails come as a result of a diminished mix of ecosystem service-providing insects, a team of scientists reported Oct. 16 in the journal Science Advances.
Monocrop palm oil plantation Honduras.
SHARE Foundation / Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0
"Our study shows that biodiversity is essential to ensure the provision of ecosystem services and to maintain a high and stable agricultural production," Matteo Dainese, the study's lead author and a biologist at Eurac Research in Bolzano, Italy, said in a statement.
It stands to reason that, with declines in the sheer numbers of insects that ferry pollen from plant to plant and keep crop-eating pests under control, these services will wane as well. But until now, it hasn't been clear how monocultures affect the number and mix of these species or how crop yields might change as a result.
Aiming to solve these questions, Dainese and his colleagues pulled together data from 89 studies cutting across a variety of landscapes, from the tropics of Asia and Africa to the higher latitudes of northern Europe. They tabulated the number of pollinating and pest-controlling insects at these sites — both the absolute number of individuals and the number of species — along with an assessment of the ecosystem services the insects provided.
In almost all of the studies they looked at, the team found that a more diverse pool of these species translated into more pollination and greater pest control. They also showed that simplified landscapes supported fewer species of service-providing insects, which ultimately led to lower crop yields.
The researchers also looked at a third measure of the makeup of insect populations — what they called "evenness." In natural ecosystems, a handful of dominant species with many more individuals typically live alongside a higher number of rarer species. The team found as landscapes became less diverse, dominant species numbers dwindled and rare species gained ground. This resulting, more equitable mix led to less pollination (though it didn't end up affecting pest control).
"Our study provides strong empirical support for the potential benefits of new pathways to sustainable agriculture that aim to reconcile the protection of biodiversity and the production of food for increasing human populations," Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter, one of the study's authors and an animal ecologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany, said in the statement.
The scientists figure that the richness of pollinator species explains around a third of the harmful impacts of less diverse landscapes, while the richness of pest-controlling species accounts for about half of the same measure. In their view, the results of their research point to the need to protect biodiversity on and around crops in an uncertain future.
"Under future conditions with ongoing global change and more frequent extreme climate events, the value of farmland biodiversity ensuring resilience against environmental disturbances will become even more important," Steffan-Dewenter said.
Reposted with permission from our media associate Mongabay.