10.11.2010
The French Ministry for the Environment has spectacularly broken ranks with the Ministry of Agriculture by publishing its own vision ‘For a sustainable agricultural policy in 2013’. The 17-page document does not beat about the bush: it calls for a radical overhaul and gives numbers.
17.06.2010
The spraying of DDT and other pesticides provoked the 1962 book ‘Silent spring’, one of the early landmarks of environmentalism. How rich in biodiversity is the spring of 2010, and how many bird songs are missing because of pesticide use? Daniel Lesinsky, board member of Pesticide Action Network Europe, responds.
25.03.2010
European Environment Agency, 2009
25.02.2010
The recent joint position paper by BirdLife and the European Landowners’ Organization (ELO), presented on 27 January 2010, raises the question with whom environmentalists should ally for CAP reform.
25.02.2010
Cigarette boxes warn: Smoking kills.
But the EU still subsidizes tobacco plantations. Ana Carricondo from the Sociedad Española de Ornitología traces the weird twists of tobacco support in her country. While some improvements have been made recently, tobacco farmers still receive 4,000€/ha on average.
20.02.2010
Forestry covers almost as much land as agriculture – but only 3% of the CAP budget is earmarked for forests. One would think that this imbalance would make forest owners long-standing critics of the CAP. Not so. For one thing, many forests are owned by the government, and governments won’t lobby against their own policy. More importantly, many forest owners also happen to be farmers, and the more powerful agricultural lobby has managed excessively well to subdue its smaller sibling in this close relationship.
25.11.2009
European Environmental Agency, 2009