The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a draft insecticide strategy to identify protections the agency will consider when it registers a new insecticide or reevaluates an existing one.
The goal is to help protects 850 endangered plant and animal species from going extinct as a result of exposure to the 450 million kilograms (one billion pounds) of insecticides used in the U.S. each year.
The EPA was required to take action on the harms pesticides can cause endangered species following a settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in September 2023. CBD successfully argued that the EPA was required to take such action under the Endangered Species Act.
Insect populations globally are in sharp decline. Research has found a 76% decline in flying insect biomass in protected areas over the last 30 years. Other work estimates upwards of 10% of the world’s insect species have gone extinct since the industrial revolution. That’s roughly half a million species that are no longer around to feed the countless animals that depend on them, including birds, frogs, fish and bats. Insects are also critical for pollination, without them some 90% of flowering plants will not be pollinated, including 35% of the food crops that most people eat. The sharp decline of such a critically important group of animals has led activists to sound the alarm about an impending insect apocalypse.
Many factors are contributing to the decline of insects, from habitat loss and invasive species to climate change and chemical insecticides like those the EPA hopes to address with their new plan.
Earlier in July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a draft opinion on just one of the 800 pesticides registered for use in the U.S. They looked at the insecticide methomyl, used to control soil-borne insects, and found it is likely to threaten 82 species of plants and animals with extinction, including the rusty patch bumble bee (Bombus affinis), Karner blue butterfly (Plebejus melissa samuelis) and, further up the food chain, the red wolf (Canis rufus).
“I’m encouraged to see the EPA recognize that insecticides pose a major threat to our most endangered pollinators and finally step up with a plan to protect them,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at CBD in a press release. “The EPA has to do all it can to ensure that no species goes extinct because of the pesticides it’s in charge of regulating.”
The proposed EPA strategy is open for public comment until September 23rd.
Banner image: Karner blue butterfly, courtesy of USDA Forest Service
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