Our friend Bernd from Germany who we met here last year at the Luna y Mares hotel is staying here again. He and his wife have been coming here for about ten years and he was telling us the other day that when they first came they used to see hundreds of small frogs in the ornamental pool in the hotel near the travel reps desks. We noticed when we first arrived that there were tadpoles in this pool and were looking forward to seeing what they were. This evening when we walked past several young frogs had emerged from the water and I think they are Cuban Tree Frog Osteopilus septentrionalis. Bernd said that the calls they made years ago was wonderful to listen to but that he rarely heard even one these days. We had been out a few evenings ago with a torch after supper because he had heard one but it was in a pile of brush on the other side of a fence so although we were only a few feet away we couldn't actually see it.
Cuban Tree Froglet Osteopilus septentrionalis 3 Oct 2017 Guardalavaca © Tim Norriss
As a postscript to this when we looked again in the ornamental pool in the hotel the next evening it had been largely drained and there was a strong chemical smell indicating that it had just been treated, and there were no tadpoles - very sad. The reason this is done (all over Cuba) is to reduce the mosquitoes that spread the viruses causing Dengue Fever and Zika Virus (there's no malaria here). There is no vaccine or anti-viral treatment currently available for either.
Dengue fever is widespread throughout the tropics and subtropics, occurring in > 100 countries. Nearly 100 million cases of dengue fever are thought to occur every year. Severe infection mainly affects infants and children living in the tropics and subtropics. Most Dengue Fever infections produce no symptoms or result in mild symptoms where 4-10 days after the mosquito bite there is usually a sudden onset of fever, headache, muscle and joint pains. A rash may develop. Within a few days the illness usually resolves and serious complications are uncommon.
Zika Virus is mainly spread through mosquito bites though there is a low risk of sexual transmission. The mosquito responsible most commonly bites during daylight hours and is abundant in urban settings. The illness itself is usually mild but there is a link between infection during pregnancy and babies being born with birth defects so pregnant women really do not want to get this virus.
In many cities in Cuba there is regular aerial spraying of insecticide to kill the mosquitoes and so reduce the risk. I’m told that in some places this has been stopped due to protests by local people.
At the Luna y Mares hotel (I don’t know what happens at any others) there is a truck that goes around each evening as dusk approaches belching out insecticide to control the mosquitoes. I’m told that it is harmless to humans and maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Do I want to take the risk – absolutely not! So when we hear the noisy truck coming we make sure we are either in our room with the window and door closed or make ourselves scarce or upwind. Would I take the risk of coming here without these controls – yes certainly, and we do in other Central American countries when we go there. Would I come here if I was a pregnant woman – I’d follow the travel advice given which is to postpone non-essential travel.
Dengue fever is widespread throughout the tropics and subtropics, occurring in > 100 countries. Nearly 100 million cases of dengue fever are thought to occur every year. Severe infection mainly affects infants and children living in the tropics and subtropics. Most Dengue Fever infections produce no symptoms or result in mild symptoms where 4-10 days after the mosquito bite there is usually a sudden onset of fever, headache, muscle and joint pains. A rash may develop. Within a few days the illness usually resolves and serious complications are uncommon.
Zika Virus is mainly spread through mosquito bites though there is a low risk of sexual transmission. The mosquito responsible most commonly bites during daylight hours and is abundant in urban settings. The illness itself is usually mild but there is a link between infection during pregnancy and babies being born with birth defects so pregnant women really do not want to get this virus.
In many cities in Cuba there is regular aerial spraying of insecticide to kill the mosquitoes and so reduce the risk. I’m told that in some places this has been stopped due to protests by local people.
At the Luna y Mares hotel (I don’t know what happens at any others) there is a truck that goes around each evening as dusk approaches belching out insecticide to control the mosquitoes. I’m told that it is harmless to humans and maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Do I want to take the risk – absolutely not! So when we hear the noisy truck coming we make sure we are either in our room with the window and door closed or make ourselves scarce or upwind. Would I take the risk of coming here without these controls – yes certainly, and we do in other Central American countries when we go there. Would I come here if I was a pregnant woman – I’d follow the travel advice given which is to postpone non-essential travel.
Dogs are smart, they like me were keeping out of the way. I think the nearest one sitting down is the smartest. I fear for the guys in the truck with no masks or respiratory protection doing this day after day.
I’m old enough to remember DDT and the effect that that had, and reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when I was a teenager had a profound effect. That made me highly sceptical of the claims circulating thirty years ago and since that Roundup (glyphosate) was very safe – you could drink it and have no effect some said! It is being investigated by the EU as a possible carcinogen. The increasing use of Roundup weed-killer (and Dicamba on GM crops in the US) is ringing alarm bells and leading to calls for it to be banned completely on both sides of the pond.
All of us depend on the countless food crops that bees pollinate. Neonicotinoid insecticides (neonics) are designed to kill insects that feed on a plant that has been sprayed/seed-coated with it. As it happens even the pollen and nectar of treated plants contain neonics. With bee colonies across the world collapsing, the pesticide lobby is still maintaining that bees are not harmed despite all the evidence to the contrary. When I was at school bees were insects and I’m not aware that that has changed since. Without bees and the many other insects that carry out pollination the food production system collapses. Without insects the ecosystem collapses, as they are the underlying component of nearly all life on the planet. The UK government has at last woken up (reversing its previous stance) and will now it says back the call to ban the insect-harming insecticides on fields in Europe. The sooner we all wake up to the fact that tipping more and more pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and molluscicides on the land is unsustainable, the better. And the fact that that these chemicals are having to become more potent all the time in order to be effective due to increasing resistance underlines that point. The EU put a temporary ban (with exceptions) on the use of three key neonicotinoids in 2013. France has already banned the use of neonics on all publicly-owned land and will ban them completely (with exceptions) in September 2018. The EU is doing great work here and is driving much of the change.
But the producers are smart and possibly/maybe/probably/definitely (you choose) in anticipation of neonics being banned tweaked the formula so that they can say ‘ah but this is not technically a neonic’. An environmental organisation has filed a lawsuit in France to ban it.
In October 2017 German researchers announced that the biomass of insects on many nature reserves in Germany has dropped by an average of 76% in the last 27 years. And this was on nature reserves. It is thought to be the effect of the use of insecticides on farmland. It is known that neonics are now widespread in hedgerow plants and shrubs in the wider countryside here in the UK where neonics have not been directly applied. Insects eating leaves, or taking pollen or nectar from such plants will be being affected by these toxins. It is known in the UK that farmland bird populations have declined by 56% since 1970. Things are not improving despite the vast amounts of money paid to farmers to do just that. Between 2010 and 2015 alone the decline was 9%. In some species the decline has been well over 90% during that period while others such as Goldfinch and Stock Dove have increased. It is quite likely I would suggest that the dramatic decline in the UK (50% in just 21 years) of another insectivorous bird, the Common Swift Apus apus, is due in part to this general decline in insects.
But the producers are smart and possibly/maybe/probably/definitely (you choose) in anticipation of neonics being banned tweaked the formula so that they can say ‘ah but this is not technically a neonic’. An environmental organisation has filed a lawsuit in France to ban it.
In October 2017 German researchers announced that the biomass of insects on many nature reserves in Germany has dropped by an average of 76% in the last 27 years. And this was on nature reserves. It is thought to be the effect of the use of insecticides on farmland. It is known that neonics are now widespread in hedgerow plants and shrubs in the wider countryside here in the UK where neonics have not been directly applied. Insects eating leaves, or taking pollen or nectar from such plants will be being affected by these toxins. It is known in the UK that farmland bird populations have declined by 56% since 1970. Things are not improving despite the vast amounts of money paid to farmers to do just that. Between 2010 and 2015 alone the decline was 9%. In some species the decline has been well over 90% during that period while others such as Goldfinch and Stock Dove have increased. It is quite likely I would suggest that the dramatic decline in the UK (50% in just 21 years) of another insectivorous bird, the Common Swift Apus apus, is due in part to this general decline in insects.
Common Swift Apus apus © Amir Ben Dov
Aquatic insects are just as vulnerable to neonicotinoid insecticides as bees and flying insects, yet have not received the same attention because the UK Government has not responded to calls to introduce systematic monitoring. Recent analysis of new monitoring data reveals that British freshwaters are heavily contaminated with neonicotinoids. Half of the sites monitored in England exceed chronic pollution limits and two rivers are acutely polluted.
We cannot go on the way we are, there has to be a better way. We have to immediately find ways to substantially reduce the amount of poisonous chemicals put on the land. We have to find new innovative less damaging and sustainable solutions to the problem of producing food for the human population. We have to get away from a system where large corporations control the seed market especially the GM seed market that locks farmers into using their products and more and more of their poisonous chemicals at the same time. It is a win win for the producers and a huge loss for the rest of us. The producers must be held financially responsible for the damage caused by use of their products, and the precautionary principle needs to be applied in all instances before licences are issued for use. GM is all about maintaining market share and locking in farmers to using their products. Traditional plant breeding techniques can produce disease and pest-resistant crops more quickly and more cheaply than GM but the big corporations have halted that by buying up the smaller seed companies that were doing it.
There are people in the world who say that we should just leave things entirely up to market forces. There are even people here in the UK government who are open proponents of doing away with all environmental legislation – what fools, what ignorant fools. Another Silent Spring is happening and you’d better wake up from your years of slumber and neglect of duty and do something about it. Over to you Michael Gove, UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. You sure as heck can't do any worse than your dreadful predecessors.
We cannot go on the way we are, there has to be a better way. We have to immediately find ways to substantially reduce the amount of poisonous chemicals put on the land. We have to find new innovative less damaging and sustainable solutions to the problem of producing food for the human population. We have to get away from a system where large corporations control the seed market especially the GM seed market that locks farmers into using their products and more and more of their poisonous chemicals at the same time. It is a win win for the producers and a huge loss for the rest of us. The producers must be held financially responsible for the damage caused by use of their products, and the precautionary principle needs to be applied in all instances before licences are issued for use. GM is all about maintaining market share and locking in farmers to using their products. Traditional plant breeding techniques can produce disease and pest-resistant crops more quickly and more cheaply than GM but the big corporations have halted that by buying up the smaller seed companies that were doing it.
There are people in the world who say that we should just leave things entirely up to market forces. There are even people here in the UK government who are open proponents of doing away with all environmental legislation – what fools, what ignorant fools. Another Silent Spring is happening and you’d better wake up from your years of slumber and neglect of duty and do something about it. Over to you Michael Gove, UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. You sure as heck can't do any worse than your dreadful predecessors.
Michael Gove by Chris McAndrew [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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