57 Amendments of Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN related to 2023/2720(RSP)
Amendment 3 #
Citation 5 a (new)
– having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee of 13 July 2023 entitled "Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the Revision of the EU Pollinators Initiative – A new deal for pollinators";
Amendment 4 #
Citation 5 b (new)
– having regard to the Special Report 15/2020 of the European Court of Auditors of 9 July 2020 entitled " Protection of wild pollinators in the EU - Commission initiatives have not borne fruit";
Amendment 8 #
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas according to the European Red List, the population of around one in three bee, butterfly and hoverfly species is declining; moreover, one in ten bee and butterfly species, and one in three hoverfly species are threatened with extinction; at regional level, insect population losses of up to 75% have been observed over the last three decades.
Amendment 9 #
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas pollinators are primarily wild species of insects, such as bees (including bumble bees, honey bees and solitary species of bees), wasps, hoverflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and other fly species, which transfer pollen from male to female structures of flowers enabling fertilisation and reproduction of plants;
Amendment 11 #
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas annual collection of objective, reliable and comparable data on the species richness and abundance of pollinator species in the field is fundamental for assessing the state of pollinator populations and for assessing whether the EU and its Member States make progress in reversing their decline.
Amendment 12 #
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas healthy populations of wild pollinators provide more robust and reliable pollination services for the agricultural sector; whereas over-reliance on pollination by single species, such as honey bees, also leads to increased risks related to higher vulnerability of the species to diseases;
Amendment 14 #
Recital C
C. whereas crop yield and/or quality depend on both the abundance and diversity of pollinators; whereas the variation in pollinator presence, abundance and richness can be in some contexts and depending on species´ ecological traits explained more by proximity and proportion of favourable (semi-)natural habitats like grasslands and forests than by in-field flower strips1a, in others the understorey flower richness in agricultural plot could be found to compensate for isolation from natural habitat2a ; _________________ 1a Océane Bartholomée, Amandine Aullo, Juliette Becquet, Clémence Vannier, Sandra Lavorel, Pollinator presence in orchards depends on landscape-scale habitats more than in-field flower resources, Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, Volume 293,2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2019.10680 6. 2a Manu E. Saunders, Gary W. Luck, Interaction effects between local flower richness and distance to natural woodland on pest and beneficial insects in apple orchards, Agricultural and Forest Entomology,2017, https://doi.org/10.1111/afe.12258
Amendment 15 #
Recital C
C. whereas crop yield and/or quality depend on both the abundance and diversity of pollinators increase the quantity and quality of food, and ultimately secure our food supply;
Amendment 17 #
Recital C a (new)
Ca. whereas the pressures to pollinators are often mainly associated with agriculture, whereas unsustainable commercial forestry responsible for lack of presence of old- trees, deadwood and associated microhabitats has been also identified as one of the main threats to hoverflies, 37% of which are threatened with extinction in Europe1a; _________________ 1a IUCN SSC HSG/CPSG (2022). European Hoverflies: Moving from Assessment to Conservation Planning. Conservation Planning Specialist Group, Apple Valley, MN, USA.
Amendment 19 #
Recital C a (new)
Ca. whereas in recent decades wild pollinators in the EU have declined in abundance and diversity under the increasing threat from human activity, including climate change; whereas the most affected insect species are butterflies, moths, bees and beetles;
Amendment 23 #
Recital C b (new)
Cb. whereas some pollinator species, such as butterflies, are ideal bioindicators as they move their ranges, alter their abundance and shift their seasonal activities in response to the effects of climate change and human activites over recent decades; whereas for many other pollinators, climate change and human activites have severe impacts on their populations and overall distribution;
Amendment 25 #
Recital C c (new)
Cc. whereas a new report on trends of grassland butterflies across Europe shows that numbers declined by 36% in just ten years and the main factors driving their decline are agricultural intensification either from the conversion of grasslands to arable fields or the heavy use of fertilisers and herbicides, which reduce the wildflowers on which butterflies breed;
Amendment 29 #
Recital E a (new)
Ea. whereas in its 2019 report on the state of the European environment, the EEA said that nine of the 13 specific policy objectives set for 2020 in the area of protecting, conserving and enhancing European biodiversity and nature will largely not be on track in 20201a; whereas the nine targets included the EU protected species and habitats, the common species (birds and butterflies), and the ecosystem condition and services; _________________ 1a EEA, “The European environment - state and outlook 2020”
Amendment 33 #
Recital E b (new)
Eb. whereas IPM can reduce insecticide applications by 95% while maintaining or enhancing crop yields through wild pollinator conservation;
Amendment 38 #
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Amendment 39 #
Paragraph 2
2. Agrees that pollinator decline poses a threat to human well-being, agricultural productivity, food security and nature in general; stresses that pollination by wild and managed pollinators is an essential agricultural input; Highlights that the 4,5 bln EUR annual value of ecosystem service Pollination in the EU only records the value of the service that is actually used and results in yield of fruits and vegetables, while if there was not a shortage of pollinators due to pressures they suffer, this value could be much higher1a. _________________ 1a EUROSTAT: Accounting for ecosystems and their services in the European Union. 2021 edition. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/7 870049/12943935/KS-FT-20-002-EN- N.pdf/de44610d-79e5-010a-5675- 14fc4d8527d9?t=1624528835061
Amendment 40 #
Paragraph 2
2. Agrees that pollinator decline poses a threat to human well-being, agricultural productivity and nature in general; stresses that pollination by wild and managed pollinators is an essential agricultural input; and that up to EUR 15 billion of the EU’s annual agricultural output can be directly attributed to pollinators1a; _________________ 1a Gallai, N. et al., Economic Valuation of the Vulnerability of World Agriculture Confronted with Pollinator Decline, Ecological Economics, 68:3, pp. 810-821.
Amendment 44 #
Paragraph 3
3. Recognises the contribution made byDeeply regrets that the first EU Pollinators Initiative and appreciates itsdid not bring tangible and effective results;
Amendment 46 #
Paragraph 3
3. Recognises the contribution made by the first EU Pollinators Initiative and appreciates its results; calls on the Commission to incorporate the results of the Initiative in the future Biodiversity Strategy, including also other key ecosystem services which insects provide;
Amendment 47 #
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Amendment 48 #
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Is alarmed by the impact of herbicides use on protected species, which are on decline, and which leads toward their reduced vitality and an increased risk of local extinction; calls in this regard on the Member States to apply farmland management compatible with wildlife conservation;
Amendment 49 #
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Emphasizes the need to address all main drivers of pollinators decline;
Amendment 50 #
Subheading 2
Policy (in)coherence: agriculture, forestry, pollution and connectivity
Amendment 52 #
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls that the European Green Deal was adopted as a new holistic strategy enabling the Union to tackle climate and environment-related challenges while leaving no one behind; recalls that the objectives of the Green Deal, including the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the Farm to Fork Strategy, will be met only when the main goal of the EU Pollinators Initiative, namely to reverse pollinator decline, is effectively achieved;
Amendment 56 #
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Emphasises that dedicated national and/or regional pollinators’ protection strategies are essential tools to mobilise all relevant parties and manage all the actions needed to reverse pollinator decline; appreciates the efforts of Member States which have adopted dedicated national or regional strategies to protect pollinators and calls on the remaining ones to do so as soon as possible in order to jointly address all drivers of decline in a coordinated manner, taking into account national, regional and local specificities and conditions;
Amendment 57 #
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5b. Calls on the Commission to assess the compliance of CAP Strategic Plans with the objectives of the EU Pollinators Initiative by 2025; calls on the Commission and Member States to jointly improve those plans, which are found to fall short of the necessary actions; calls, furthermore, on the Commission and Member States to create a specific chapter within the CAP Strategic Plans to describe concrete measures aiming at wild and managed pollinators protection, considering their importance as providers of agricultural input;
Amendment 58 #
Paragraph 5 c (new)
5c. Calls on the Commission and Member States to ensure that current and future governance mechanisms and platforms are fully functional in order to reach, by agreed deadlines, the goals of the Pollinators Initiative and more broadly the Biodiversity Strategy; calls, in this respect, on the Commission to take necessary legislative and non-legislative measures that will lead towards closing existing governance gaps and removing obstacles to meet objectives and targets agreed on the Union level;
Amendment 69 #
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Reiterates that the widespread commercial forestry model that does not support presence of old, veteran trees, deadwood and associated microhabitats is one of the main threats to esssential pollinators; Appreciates that one conservation plan under the New Deal for Pollinators will be about forest landscapes; Proposes that the plan should consider the evidence at hand, follow up on the call of strict protection of all remaining old-growth and primary forests as proposed in the EU Forest Strategy, and that it should look for synergies with principles of closer to nature forestry;
Amendment 82 #
Paragraph 10
10. Takes note ofRegrets the European Food Safety Authority’s revised guidance on the risk assessment of plant protection products on bees (Apis mellifera, Bombus spp. and solitary bees) and calls on the Commission and the Member States to implement it swiftly; has been based on the agreement made during Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting of 28-29 June 2021 to establish a Specific Protection Goal of 10% as the maximum permitted level of colony size reduction resulting from exposure of honey bees to pesticides; considers that the Specific Protection Goal of 10% presents an unnecessarily high risk to honey bees, wild pollinators and biodiversity in general; points to the fact that this agreement fails to protect the rights of beekeepers;
Amendment 83 #
Paragraph 10
10. Takes note of the European Food Safety Authority’s revised guidance on the risk assessment of plant protection products on bees (Apis mellifera, Bombus spp. and solitary bees) and calls on the Commission and the Member States to implement it swiftly; takes note of the agreement in the European Union’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting of 28-29 June 2021 to establish a Specific Protection Goal of 10% as the maximum permitted level of colony size reduction resulting from exposure of honey bees to pesticides; takes note the SCOPAFF decision of May 2022 to implement an undefined threshold approach for specific protection goals for both bumblebees and solitary bees; considers that specific protection goals for wild pollinators must be in line with the need for recovery of already depleted populations today;
Amendment 88 #
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Is concerned by the limitations of single-active ingredient assessments during authorisation of pesticides; calls, therefore, on the Commission and the EFSA to enable a transition towards a more holistic and contextualized environmental risk assessment of pesticides for insects, including pollinators, building on the IPol-ERA project, without delay; believes that such systemic transformation should take into account a broad range of pollinators and also cumulative effects of different chemicals, and that it requires coordinated efforts of all relevant agencies;
Amendment 89 #
Paragraph 12
12. Takes note of the European Chemicals Agency’s draft guidance on the assessment of risks to bees from the use of biocides; underlines the need to swiftly finalize the guidance document, so that it starts to be used in the authorization process under Regulation (EU) 528/2012 at EU or Member State level and for the approval at EU level, respectively;
Amendment 90 #
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Calls on the Commission and Member States to address all pending calls by the European Parliament within the adopted report on Union's authorization procedure for pesticides (P8_TA(2019)0023);
Amendment 91 #
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Underlines that it is necessary to phase-out harmful co-formulants, which have unacceptable effects on non-target species, including pollinators;
Amendment 95 #
Paragraph 12 c (new)
12c. Regrets that several Member States continue to provide emergency derogations for the use of EU-banned neonicotinoids despite the ruling of the Court of Justice - Case C162-211a ; calls on the Commission to fully enforce compliance with the ruling. _________________ 1a Case C162-21, see https://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:6202 1CJ0162
Amendment 106 #
Paragraph 14
14. Regrets the lack of coordinated efforts to address light pollution, with some countries adopting national policies and others taking no action; underlines that metrics that record and report on light pollution levels in the EU and Member States are needed in order to be able to set pollution reduction targets against agreed baselines, and to monitor progress; encourages the use of Copernicus services to establish a diagnosis of the current light pollution in the European Union;
Amendment 108 #
Paragraph 15
15. Underlines the need to incorporate the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services into urban planning practices in order to protect pollinator populations, contribute to their diversity and create new and well-connected habitats; calls on the Member States and local authorities to widely apply the guidance on pollinator-friendly cities;
Amendment 109 #
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Is alarmed by the ongoing habitat loss and fragmentation and their adverse effects on many pollinating insects; welcomes, in this respect, the commitment of the Commission to prepare a blueprint for a network of ecological corridors for pollinators, or ‘Buzz Lines', jointly with Member States; underlines the necessity to agree on a plan of actions with deadlines and calls on the Members States to support its implementation;
Amendment 122 #
Paragraph 17
17. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop a standardised EU pollinator monitoring scheme to improve the gathering of data about the pollinator population; underlines that the granularity of the collected data should enable detection of annual population changes which are meaningful for policy actions and conservation measures; calls on the Member States to support training and capacity building in order to rapidly obtain the human resources required for pollinator monitoring;
Amendment 124 #
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Underlines the importance of an appropriate design and statistical power to detect changes within the future monitoring efforts; believes, in this regard, that the monitoring needs to be underpinned inter alia by adequately high number of sites in each Member State to detect changes in abundance and species´ richness of various pollinator groups; believes that these elements are key to ensure the necessary representativeness, accuracy, credibility and acceptance of resulting data as indicators of change;
Amendment 125 #
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Calls on the Commission to verify that the strategic planning tools for the management of Natura 2000 sites (PAFs) include requirements for the protection of wild pollinators, and assess the relevant measures proposed by the Member States in the PAFs;
Amendment 126 #
Paragraph 17 b (new)
17b. Calls on Member States to develop pollinator recovery plans, including species recovery plans for their Habitats Directive listed and other most endangered pollinator species, and resource their implementation, by 2026 at the latest; in this regard, encourages Member States to establish new protected areas for butterflies, moths and other wild pollinators, especially Red Listed species, by 2025 at the latest;
Amendment 127 #
Paragraph 17 b (new)
17b. Believes that high quality annual monitoring and information on the state of pollinator populations, assessed at least every three years, is essential to support and improve decision-making processes, ensure more effective public spending, and increase accountability and understanding of the impact of policies and legislation;
Amendment 128 #
Paragraph 17 c (new)
Amendment 129 #
Paragraph 17 d (new)
17d. Applauds the work and results of the past and ongoing EU initiatives, focusing on monitoring of species, state of habitats, pollutants present in the environment and awareness raising; calls on the Commission, in this regard, to establish legal basis and lasting financial framework for the following initiatives: SPRING (Strengthening pollinator recovery through indicators and monitoring), INSIGNIA (Environmental monitoring of pollutants via honeybees), EMBAL (European Monitoring of Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes), LUCAS (Land Use and Coverage Area frame Survey) and STING (Science and Technology for Pollinating Insects), and underlines that monitoring of drivers of pollinator decline needs to be continuously implemented over long periods of time;
Amendment 130 #
Paragraph 17 e (new)
17e. Calls on Member States to support and provide adequate funding to the Long-Term Ecosystem Research in Europe (eLTER)2a, and facilitate the integration of the EMBAL and INSIGNIA, as well as the future EU Pollinator Monitoring Scheme, into the eLTER framework. _________________ 2a https://elter-ri.eu
Amendment 132 #
Draft motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Supports the implementation of the EU pollinator monitoring scheme and repeats its call for the integration of a specific pollinator indicator for the cCommon aAgricultural pPolicy, which will evaluate the policy’s impact on both pollinators and pollination, by 2026;
Amendment 135 #
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Appreciates the commitments to finalise the EU-wide mapping of key pollinator areas by 2025 and the Red List assessments for key insect pollinator groups by 2024; calls, in this regard, on the Commission to adopt action plans for the recovery of key species with concrete measures and targets as soon as possible following their Red List assessment;
Amendment 141 #
Paragraph 20
20. Calls on the Commission to assess new avenues for financing the measures needed to meet the objectives of the EU Pollinators Initiative, including by setting up a Nature Fund within the new Multiannual Financial Framework 2027+; underlines that the initiative must mobilise sufficient additional financial resources and secure commitments and investments at EU and Member State levels on a scale and with an urgency that will contribute to halting pollinator losses by 2030; calls on the Commission to propose a dedicated financial tool, which will support systematic biodiversity monitoring, indicators and reporting on state, trends and pressures across all Member States;
Amendment 142 #
Paragraph 20 a (new)
20a. Calls on the relevant Commission´s Directorate Generals and on the EEA, EFSA, ECHA to intensify cooperation to fill the identified data and policy gaps; believes that the Commission, agencies and Member States need to improve collection, sharing, management and generation of new biodiversity data in order to improve policy making and ensure policy coherence at all levels;
Amendment 143 #
Paragraph 20 a (new)
20a. Calls on the Commission to set up appropriate governance and monitoring mechanisms, including assigning clear responsibilities between Commission departments involved in policy areas relevant for wild pollinators;
Amendment 147 #
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Calls on the Members States to comply with the IPM principles which offer a practical way to reducing the use of pesticides, one of the main drivers of pollinators decline;
Amendment 152 #
Paragraph 23
23. Recognises the importance of citizen scientists and taxonomists, who need to be supported further so that they can strengthen their expertise and good practices and share them across Member States; calls on the Member States to support existing and new Butterfly Monitoring Schemes, inter alia by providing long-term financial assistance to their appointed coordinators; appreciates the successful work of Pollinator Ambassadors in motivating citizens and businesses; engagement and calls on the Commission and Member States for their support;
Amendment 156 #
Paragraph 23 a (new)
23a. Urges the Commission and Member States to provide small grant schemes to experts, civil society and individuals to support local and regional actions for pollinators and to enable setting up an EU platform for wild pollinators coordinating their efforts and facilitating knowledge-sharing on long- term basis;
Amendment 161 #
Paragraph 23 b (new)
23b. Calls on the Commission and Member States to ensure all necessary means in order to maintain and improve the recently expanded European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme database and to launch and maintain a public EU- database required for the future EU pollinator monitoring scheme;
Amendment 163 #
Paragraph 24 a (new)
24a. Underlines the importance of open, constructive and genuine dialogues among EU institutions and representatives of relevant authorities on all governance levels, experts, beekeepers and citizens, which can pave the way towards new partnerships, actions and commitments and stronger engagement, such as during the EU Pollinator Week 2021: A New Deal for Pollinators; believes that knowledge sharing, awareness raising, capacity building and engagement of all relevant stakeholders, such as farmers, beekeepers, foresters, businesses, landscape architects, taxonomists, citizen scientists and young people in pollinator protection is a precondition for successful implementation of this Initiative;
Amendment 164 #
Paragraph 24 a (new)
24a. Calls on Member States to support coordination and data management of complementary citizen science European Butterfly Monitoring Schemes (eBMS) across the EU by increasing butterfly transects, monitoring rare and threatened species and real time reporting technology;