End The Denial Over Bee Poisoning

Sir Robert Watson chief scientist at the Department of the Environment (Defra), has acted bravely in ordering a reassessment of the licensing of neonicotinoid pesticides in the UK. The French government banned these poisons in 2000, after the deaths of half a million bee colonies; Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland followed after similar wildlife catastrophes.

Watson faces an uphill struggle; Defra, its Food and Environment Research Agency and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides have all resolutely ignored the many peer-reviewed studies from Europe, from as long ago as 1999, which proved the extreme toxicity of neoniocotinoids for honeybees, bumblebees and butterflies.

The wildlife NGOs are similarly in denial. With the honourable exception of Buglife, all have stood by silently as bees, pollinating insects, soil-invertebrates and farmland birds are wiped from the face of Britain's countryside.

Painful as it may be for Defra, the ACP and the leading wildlife bodies to admit that they got this wrong, they must call for a complete ban on these poisons now, or we will suffer complete ecological disaster in this country.

Graham White

Coldstream, Scottish Borders

Your report (31 March) that in the light of new research, the Environment Department's distinguished chief scientist, Sir Robert Watson, will review the safety of the notorious neonicotinoid pesticides, long blamed for the destruction of honey bees and other pollinators, is brilliant news.

Insect experts Buglife, supported by the Soil Association, first presented scientific evidence of the damage these new and dangerous chemicals are doing to pollinating insects during the last Labour government, at a bee seminar in 10 Downing Street called by Sarah Brown. Then and since, government scientists and regulators refused to act – just as their predecessors did 50 years ago when faced with evidence of the destruction of birds of prey by DDT. However, the battle to ban neonicotinoids is not over, as is clear from the denials of the latest science from chemical companies

Neonicotinoids are now known to have lethal impacts on bees at tiny doses, well below the levels regulators currently consider "safe". Most chemical sprays used on our food are declared "safe" by governments on the basis that the very small doses that often remain on food are below a level where they can affect humans or wildlife, and can thus be ignored. This latest research undermines a significant part of the safety case for all chemical sprays used in farming, and should lead to a fundamental rethink in how we farm.

Peter Melchett

Policy Director, Soil Association, Bristol