The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in
Germany works for a decrease in national and international pesticide use. In
August 1994, WWF led a campaign to adopt a national pesticide reduction
programme. About 15,000 WWF supporters sent post cards calling on agriculture
minister, Jochen Borchert, to take urgent action. The aim is to reduce by half
the amount of pesticide active ingredient used and cut the application frequency
between now and the year 2000. At their conference of 9 March this year in
Bremerhaven, the environment ministers of the federal (coastal) states of
Hamburg, Bremen, Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
called on the Federal Government to develop a pesticide reduction programme.
Minister Angela Merkel was called on to adopt "regulations on the technical
practice of plant protection products with the aim of minimising the their use
and to present a report on pesticide use and possibilities for its reduction in
Germany at the 43rd conference of environment ministers".
In a statement to the ministers for environment and
agriculture, the IVA (German pesticide producers association) argues there is no
proof that pesticides approved in Germany "cause unjustifiable or
irreversible, damage to the environment when they are used according to their
specifications and with good technical practice".
However, initial results from a WWF study on compliance with
the Pflanzen-schutzmittel-Anwendungsverordnung (regulation on the use of plant
protection agents) reveal that pesticides are sometimes used improperly or
unlawfully.
Hermann Kleemeyer, WWF, in Pestizid Brief 8/95.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 30,
December 1995, page 16]