Pesticides News

The choice of Ricardo Salles as environment minister, and many generals for top posts, leaves activists concerned over a potentially repressive, anti-democratic government.

Pesticide use on agricultural plantations may be shifting the color palette of howler monkey fur in Costa Rica, a team of scientists has found. Mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) are…

“It’s easy to quantify if insects are dead,” said Harvard post-doctoral fellow James Crall, lead author of the recent study “Neonicotinoid exposure disrupts bumblebee nest behavior, social networks, and thermoregulation.”…

President elect Jair Bolsonaro signals his government will be strongly pro-business, likely bringing major setbacks for the environment, indigenous groups and social movements in Brazil.

The president elect’s plan to fuse the ministries has met with staunch resistance from environmentalists, scientists, and even some in the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby.

Since the arrival of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) caterpillar in West Africa in early 2016, true to its name, it has been marching quickly and mercilessly through the continent,…

Brazil is on the verge of electing a president who, supported by a new Congress, could escalate Amazon deforestation and pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement: analysis.

Two-thirds of federal deputies seeking re-election to Brazil’s Congress this October supported bills harmful to the environment, indigenous peoples, and rural workers.

Traditional communities in Brazil’s savannah, lacking land deeds, have been displaced by large-scale soy growers, and forced to resettle in impoverished cities like Campos Lindos.

Five candidates lead the polls for Brazil’s presidency, with a vote 7 October. Mongabay offers some of what’s known, and what’s not, about their environmental positions.

Brazil is a leading global consumer of chemical pesticides – many banned in the EU and U.S. This not only puts farmworkers at risk, but consumers of Brazilian food the world round.

Most oil palm production in Pará state has so far been on degraded lands, but researchers warn a coming Brazilian oil palm boom could result in large-scale Amazon deforestation.

The bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is pushing for total deregulation of pesticides, with potentially harmful health and environmental impacts.

As Colombia seeks peace with FARC rebels, Trump wants to cut funds for urgently needed social and rural development programs, with a return to aerial spraying and militaristic War on Drugs.

Germany’s flying insect biomass has dropped 76 percent in the past 27 years, according to a study published last week in PLOS ONE. The findings have stunned biologists around the…

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – If the street Pedro Arnado was looking down was on the Philippine government’s roadmap for future palm oil development, critics say it would be one highly…

Based on a poll conducted last year by the Baltimore, Maryland-based Vegetarian Resource Group, an estimated eight million adults in the United States identify as vegetarian. That’s 3.3 percent of…

I have something in common with the sassy character Lucy, Charlie Brown’s eternal “frenemy” in the iconic Peanuts cartoon series by Charles M. Schulz. We are both great admirers of…

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) declared that it was placing the rusty patched bumblebee on the U.S. endangered species list. The listing would have taken effect…

The rusty patched bumblebee became the first-ever bumblebee species to be protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act this week, and the first wild bee of any kind in the…

An investigation into two Sumatran plantations operated by Indonesian food giant Indofood, a joint venture partner with PepsiCo, has found evidence of numerous human rights abuses including the use of…

For nearly five months now, Liana Azeredo avoids walking the streets of Rio de Janeiro during the day. Even under the intense heat of the city, she also prefers long…

Sitting on his verandah in Laikipia, northern Kenya, Dr. Dino Martins, 38, a Kenyan entomologist with experience with malaria, tick fever, liverfluke and other vector-borne diseases, talks about the need…

Pesticides are ubiquitous and important; but how safe are they, and who answers this crucial question? According to a paper published in the journal Bioscience, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s…

Cornfields in Iowa. Photo credit: David Gonthier. To protect natural ecosystems in the long term, some conservationists advocate "land sparing," in which farmers intensify agricultural practices to boost yields, theoretically…

Monarch butterfly population is second lowest on record The shrinking of the migrating monarch butterfly population. Image by: WWF. The world's migrating monarch butterfly population has bounced back slightly from…

Bumblebees exposed to pesticides suffered adverse effects to their foraging behavior, according to a new study co-authored by Nigel Raine and Richard Gill in the journal Functional Ecology. Bumblebees (Bombus…

In recent years the evidence has piled up that neonicotinoids—a hugely popular group of pesticide—may be at least partly responsible for ongoing bee and pollinator collapse. But new research in…

Scientists have discovered that blueberry plants visited by more diverse bee species increased their seed number, berry size and fruit set, and quickened their ripening time. They hope their findings…

Neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been increasingly blamed for the collapse of bee populations, may also impact human's developing nervous system, according to a review of research by the European Food…