Eco Hvar

Glyphosate and the EU 2015 - 2016

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and many other herbicides, was discussed in the EU Parliament on December 1st 2015.

Glyphosate herbicide at work. Photo Vivian Grisogono Glyphosate herbicide at work. Photo Vivian Grisogono

The timing of the meeting was interesting. It clashed with the global summit starting in Paris on Monday November 30th, which captured the media headlines and deflected interest from the glyphosate debate. Yet dealing with glyphosate properly is a matter of immediate urgency in the public interest.

Glyphosate-based herbicides are used around the world in gardens, parks, roadways and commercial agriculture. Common versions used in Croatia are Cidokor and Ouragan. The EU Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety - happily better known by its abbreviation ENVI - will take part in an Exchange of Views (EoV) about glyphosate with the EU Commission, the WHO (World Health Organisation) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The subject of discussion was whether or not glyphosate had been shown to be a potential cause of cancer in humans. WHO IARC issued a report on March 20th 2015 stating that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”, while EFSA's report, published on November 12th 2015, concluded the opposite, asserting that glyphosate is “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential according to Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008”. 

Much was at stake. The discussion was aimed at helping the Commission when it came to making its decision on “whether or not to keep glyphosate on the EU list of approved active substances”. Glyphosate is big business. Originally patented by American agrochemical giant Monsanto and first marketed in 1974, the patent was allowed to lapse in 2000, when Monsanto had established its Roundup-ready genetically modified seeds and crops in the international market, following their introduction in 1996. Other companies were then able to produce glyphosate-based herbicides, which are sold in unimaginable quantities worldwide. After publishing articles about the herbicide on its website, our registered charity Eco Hvar received apparently serious offers of partnerships from glyphosate suppliers as far apart as Uganda and China.

Following the publication of the WHO report, many countries imposed restrictions on the sale of glyphosate products to the public. Bermuda went further and suspended all imports of glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides.

Is glyphosate proven safe?

No, despite Monsanto's continued assurances. How can a poison be considered safe? It can't be tested on humans, that would provoke outrage. The hundreds of animals which have been force-fed glyphosate in laboratories are no proof of what happens when glyphosate is mixed up for application in the environment. Glyphosate received approval from the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mainly on the basis of research studies which were sponsored by the producers. Most were never published in peer-reviewed journals. The few published articles submitted in support dealt mainly with protocols for dealing with the hapless animals subjected to the poison to see how much would do them harm. Glyphosate was reregistered by the EPA in 1993. Supporting documentation for the approval included some 228 unpublished papers submitted by Monsanto.

Is glyphosate linked to cancers?

 Yes, this showed up in some of the animal testing, and was confirmed in the WHO report.

Why is research linking glyphosate to cancer risks not respected?

The results are respected by those who are guided by true scientific principles. But credible science has been undermined by the profit motive. There have been cover-ups. There is determined lobbying. All those who have vested interests in selling glyphosate products have mountedvirulent campaigns to neutralize any reports suggesting glyphosate is not safe. The most notorious case involved a study by Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team showing several adverse effects of Roundup and genetically modified maize on rats, including tumour formation. Published in 2012, the research paper was retracted by the journal's editor in 2013. The authors stood by their results, and scientists rallied behind the authors. The paper was re-published in 2014.

Is glyphosate generally safe apart from the possible risk of cancers?

No. Glyphosate has been shown to have very many health risks, as well as causing damage to the environment. Glyphosate works by inhibiting the shikimic acid pathway in plants. It was claimed that this pathway did not exist in humans. However, it has been shown that it does exist in the human gut, which is vital to good health. Disturbance of the gut mechanisms is linked to a whole raft of problems and diseases.

Pro-glyphosate reports? barely credible

A review carried out by EU rapporteur state Germany and submitted to the European Food Safety Authority in January 2014 concluded that glyphosate posed no major risks to human health. This raised strong public protest, and there was an even stronger reaction against EFSA's report in November 2015, which was largely based on the 2014 EU report, and obviously produced to counter the WHO IARC's measured stance. The strength of the public disapproval is not surprising, given the wealth of evidence that glyphosate is hazardous.

The Exchange of Views

The EU's Environmental Committee consists of some 139 members, including two from Croatia: Marijana Petir of the Christian Democrats group, and Davor Škrlec of the Greens/European Free Alliance group. Fingers crossed that the committee members don't ever fall for the blandishments or bullying tactics of the pro-glyphosate lobby. Most people, when pressed, define good health as their biggest priority, way ahead of wealth. The health of millions will continue to be in jeopardy if glyphosate's approval for use in the European Union is extended.

The next step

In March 2016, the environmental Committee produced a draft Motion for a non-binding Resolution, in advance of a vote due to take place in an EU Plenary Session on 13th April 2016. When it came to the vote, there were last-minute amendments to the Resolution which significantly altered the nature of the Resolution's proposals. The amended Motion for Resolution was carried by 374 votes to 225, with 102 abstentions. The most controversial alteration was the call to the Commission to renew Glyphosate's approval for a further seven years. Although this was less than the Commission's recommendation of the maximum fifteen years, it caused great disappointment among leading Environment Committee members who felt that this was not in the interests of public health, given the proven risks of Glyphosate use. 

After the vote, Croatian MEP Biljana Borzan, who voted in favour of the Motion for Resolution, expressed the view that the European Commission would probably not dare to ignore the message from the Parliamentarians, even though the Motion was non-binding. However, shortly afterwards the news began to circulate that the Commission was intending to ignore several of the Parliamentary proposals, and to seek a ten-year extension for Glyphosate approval.

With the European Parliament powerless and the Commission all-powerful, serious flaws in the EU's democratic processes became clear during the year following the IARC report. The health of millions of people was left at risk. 

© Vivian Grisogono 2015, updated May 2016 

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    MARA NORTH CONSERVANCY, Kenya — Under a fading sun, Kenya’s Maasai Mara came alive.

    A land cruiser passed through a wide-open savanna, where a pride of lions stirred from a day-long slumber. Steps away, elephants treaded single-file through tall grass, while giraffes peered from a thicket of acacia trees. But just over a ridge was a sight most safari-goers might not expect — dozens of herders guiding cattle into an enclosure for the night. The herders were swathed in vibrant red blankets carrying long wooden staffs, their beaded jewelry jingling softly.

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    © Jon McCormack

    Lions tussle in the tall grass of Mara North Conservancy.

    But elsewhere in Africa, the conservancy model has remained far out of reach.

    “Conservancies have the potential to lift pastoral communities out of poverty in many African landscapes. But starting a conservancy requires significant funding — money they simply don't have,” said Bjorn Stauch, senior vice president of Conservation International’s nature finance division.

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    Conservation International wanted to find a way for local communities to start conservancies and strengthen existing ones. Over the next three years, the organization aims to invest millions of dollars in new and emerging conservancies across Southern and East Africa. The funds will be provided as loans, which the conservancies will repay through tourism leases. This financing will jumpstart new conservancies and reinforce those already in place. The approach builds on an initial model that has proven highly effective and popular with local communities.

    “We’re always looking for creative new ways to pay for conservation efforts that last,” Stauch said. “This is really a durable financing mechanism that puts money directly in the pockets of those who live closest to nature — giving them a leg up. And it’s been proven to work in the direst circumstances imaginable.”

    © Will McCarry

    Elijah Toirai explains current conservancy boundaries and potential areas for expansion.

    Creativity from crisis

    In 2020, the entire conservancy model almost collapsed overnight.

    “No one thought that the world could stop in 24 hours,” said Kelvin Alie, senior vice president and acting Africa lead for Conservation International. “But then came the pandemic, and suddenly Kenya is shutting its doors on March 23, 2020. And in the Mara, this steady and very well-rounded model based on safari tourism came to a screeching halt.”

    Tourism operators, who generate the income to pay landowners' leases, found themselves without revenue. Communities faced a difficult choice: replace the lost income by fencing off their lands for grazing, converting it to agriculture, or selling to developers — each of which would have had drastic consequences for the Maasai Mara’s people and wildlife.

    © Will Turner

    A black-backed jackal hunts for prey.

    “But then the nature finance team at Conservation International — these crazy guys — came up with a wild idea,” Alie said. “In just six months they put this entirely new funding model together: loaning money at an affordable rate to the conservancies so that they can continue to pay staff and wildlife rangers.”

    Conservation International and the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association launched the African Conservancies Fund — a rescue package to offset lost revenues for approximately 3,000 people in the area who rely on tourism income. Between December 2020 and December 2022, the fund provided more than US$ 2 million in affordable loans to four conservancies managing 70,000 hectares (170,000 acres).

    The loans enabled families in the Maasai Mara to continue receiving income from their lands to pay for health care, home repairs, school fees and more. And because tourism revenues — not government funding — support wildlife protection in conservancies, this replacement funding ensured wildlife patrols continued normally, with rangers working full time.

    Born out of this emergency, we discovered a new way to do conservation.

    Elijah Toirai

    “The catastrophe of COVID-19 was total for us,” said Benard Leperes, a landowner with Mara North Conservancy and a conservation expert at Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association. “Without Conservation International and the fund, this landscape would have not been secured; the conservancies would have disintegrated as people were forced to sell their land to convert it to agriculture.”

    But it was communities themselves that proved the model might be replicable after the pandemic ended.

    “The conservancies had until 2023 before the first payment was due,” Toirai said. “But as soon as tourism resumed in mid-2021, the communities started paying back the loans. Today, the loans are being repaid way ahead of schedule.”

    “Born out of this emergency, we discovered a new way to do conservation.”

    A new era for conservation

    The high plateaus overlooking the Maasai Mara are home to the very last giant pangolins in Kenya.

    These mammals, armored with distinctive interlocking scales, are highly endangered because of illegal wildlife trade. In Kenya, threats from poaching, deforestation and electric fences meant to deter elephants from crops have caused the species to nearly disappear. Today, scientists believe there could be as few as 30 giant pangolins left in Kenya.

    Conservancies could be crucial to bringing them back. Conservation International has identified opportunities to provide transformative funding for conservancies in this area — a sprawling grassland northwest of Maasai Mara that is the very last pangolin stronghold in the country. The fund will help communities better protect an existing 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) conservancy and bring an additional 5,000 hectares under protection. It provides a safety net, ensuring a steady income for the communities as the work of expanding the conservancy begins. With a stable income, communities can start work to restore the savanna and remove electric fences that have killed pangolins. And as wildlife move back into the ecosystem, the grasslands will begin to recover.

    In addition to expanding conservancies around Maasai Mara, Conservation International has identified other critical ecosystems where community conservancies can help lift people out poverty, while providing new habitats for wildlife. Conservation International has ambitious plans to restore a critical and highly degraded savanna between Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks in southern Kenya, as well as a swath of savanna outside Kruger National Park in South Africa.

    © Emily Nyrop

    A lone acacia tree in a sea of grass.

    Elephants, fire, Maasai and cattle

    Many of the new and emerging community conservancies have been carefully chosen as key wildlife corridors that would be threatened by overgrazing livestock.

    When the first Maasai Mara conservancies were established in 2009, cattle grazing was prohibited within their boundaries. When poorly managed, cattle can wear grasses down to their roots, triggering topsoil erosion and the loss of nutrients, microbes and biodiversity vital for soil health. It was also believed that tourists would be put off by the sight of livestock mingling with wildlife.

    © Emily Nyrop

    Cattle are closely monitored in the Maasai Mara to prevent overgrazing.

    However, over the years, landowners objected, lamenting the loss of cultural ties to cattle and herding. “That was when we changed tactics,” said Raphael Kereto, the grazing manager for Mara North Conservancy.

    Beginning in 2018, Mara North and other conservancies in the region started adopting livestock grazing practices to restore the savanna. Landowners agreed to periodically move livestock between different pastures, allowing grazed lands to recover and regrow,  mimicking the traditional methods pastoralists have used on these lands for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

    “Initially, there was a worry that maybe herbivores and other wildlife will run away from cattle,” said Kereto. “But we have seen the exact opposite — the wildlife all follow where cattle are grazing. This is because we have a lot of grass, and all the animals follow where there is a lot of grass. We even saw a cheetah with a cub that spent all her time rotating with wildlife.”

    “It's amazing — when we move cattle, the cheetah comes with it.”

    The loans issued by the fund — now called the African Conservancies Facility — will enhance rotational grazing systems, which are practiced differently in each conservancy, by incorporating best practices and lessons from the organization’s Herding for Health program in southern Africa.

    © Will Turner

    An elephant herd stares down a pack of hyenas.

    For landowners like Dickson Kaelo, who was among the pioneers to propose the conservancy model in Kenya, the return of cattle to the ecosystem has restored a natural order.

    “I always wanted to understand how it was that there was so much more wildlife in the conservancies than in Maasai Mara National Reserve,” said Kaelo, who heads the Kenya Wildlife Conservancy Association, based in Nairobi.

    “I went to the communities and asked them this question. They told me savannas were created by elephants, fire and Maasai and cattle, and excluding any one of those is not good for the health of the system. So, I believe in the conservancies — I know that every single month, people go to the bank and they have some money, they haven't lost their culture because they still are cattle keepers, and the land is much healthier, with more grass, more wildlife, and the trees have not been cut.

    “For me, it’s something really beautiful.”

    Further reading:

    Will McCarry is the content director at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.

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