Review and Edit Message

Trading birds for biofuels is no deal  (link)

Message Title - please edit title and personalize message below (no URLs)
Biofuel Expansion Threatens Europe with Ecological Collapse

Your Message:
Dear Sir/Madam, I am deeply concerned about EU plans to have a zero land set aside target for the 2008 harvest, possibly from autumn this year. Numerous studies show that large numbers of bird and insect populations, as well as some mammals and wild flowers, depend on set aside lands for their survival because intensive agriculture no longer offers them habitat. Abolishing set-asides, even temporarily, without first replacing them with truly sustainable, environmental farming policies, will leave millions of birds at risk of starvation next spring. The EU is formally committed to halting biodiversity losses by 2010. This will be impossible to achieve if set- aside targets are scrapped without a replacement. Europe is already facing an extinction crisis: common farmland birds have declined by nearly half because of intensive agriculture. 45% of Europe's butterflies are at risk of extinction. A recent study found 80% declines in bee diversity and 70% declines in the diversity of wild flowers dependent on pollination on hundreds of sites in the UK and Netherlands. As the authors of the study warned, the future of pollination and of much of Europe's food supplies may be at risk as pollinators are driven into extinction. The EU has agreed to an environmental health check of agricultural policies and the European Environment Commission has commissioned a study to look into the benefits of set-asides. If set-aside targets are set to zero for the next year, however, those discussions will become largely academic. Many endangered bird populations may not survive a year without this habitat and insect species, including pollinators, will decline further. Once more land is put into intensive agricultural production it will be difficult to reverse. There are limits to agricultural intensification, after which terrestrial ecosystem processes irreversibly suffer. Abolishing set-asides in favour of more intensive agriculture will increase pesticide and fertiliser use and could well cause greater soil erosion, particularly in the Mediterranean countries. Far from securing our long-term food security, this move will make European agriculture in the long-term even less sustainable. Set asides are essential in the current situation of intensive monoculture-based agriculture. There is a strong argument for replacing the current system with designated environmental set asides, with even greater benefits for wildlife – but scrapping set-asides without a replacement even temporarily will have the most serious environmental consequences. Sacrificing Europe's and the world's biodiversity cannot be the answer to rising food prices, nor to climate change. Food prices are rising largely because Europe and other governments are pushing the expansion of the biofuel market, i.e. because Europeans are using more and more food for cars. Europe's biofuel targets already have a devastating impact on biodiversity, rainforests, local communities and food sovereignty in the global South. The biofuel industry has long been lobbying for the abolition of set-asides in order to open up more land for biofuel production. Scrapping set-asides is likely to lead to more intensively farmed monocultures for biofuels – at the expense of our wildlife and ecosystem sustainability. There is little evidence that scrapping set-asides to produce more biofuels will mitigate climate change. A study considered by the European Commission before the Biofuel Directive was passed in 2003 found that using all 5.6 million hectares of set-asides in 15 EU nations would reduce those countries carbon dioxide emissions by no more than 0.3% - and even that figure ignores the considerable nitrous oxide and soil carbon emissions. Road fuel demand would be reduced by a maximum of 1.5%. By comparison, a study by the German Ministry of Environment shows that carbon dioxide emissions from road transport could be reduced by 11-24% if a speed limit of 100-120 km/h was enforced – and there is considerable scope for cutting emissions through strict fuel efficiency standards and more sustainable transport and planning strategies. We need a moratorium on EU biofuel targets now to protect food supplies and biodiversity in Europe as well as in the global South. A growing number of NGOs and individuals have signed a call for a moratorium on EU biofuel targets now to protect food supplies and biodiversity in Europe and the not yet over-developed world. It is unseemly for European governments to demand other countries protect their biodiversity and meaningfully reduce emissions when you own biofuel policy does neither. European and global ecologicaly sustainability depends critically upon reducing emissions and maintaining natural habitats and set-asides. I therefore hope that you will oppose the proposed 0% set aside target for the coming year, support policies to promote more bio-diverse, organic farming systems, and call for a moratorium on EU biofuel targets. Yours faithfully,

bcc: YOU