A new joint investigation by Unearthed, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Ecostorm has revealed that a loophole in the so-called Amazon Soya Moratorium renders supermarkets’ customer-friendly claims of ‘deforestation-free soya’ near meaningless.

Soya is a key commodity used by dairy, cattle, pig and poultry farmers in Europe and the rest of the world to feed their livestock.

The findings undermine eco-friendly claims by some global meatpackers, animal feed companies and supermarkets that soya is no longer linked to Amazon destruction.

Deforestation by the back door

The Amazon Soy Moratorium  – first agreed in 2006 – bans the sale of soya grown on Amazon land deforested after July 2008. But beef and other crops are not restricted under the soy moratorium, meaning farmers can sell their soya to traders as “deforestation-free” while destroying rainforest for cattle, corn and other commodities.

Evidence suggests that the moratorium has successfully stopped rainforest being directly converted into soya fields. However, soya farming has continued to expand in the Amazon, overwhelmingly on land that was previously cleared, usually for cattle. That expansion can still indirectly cause fresh deforestation, as ranchers sell up to farmers at a profit and move deeper into the forest, where land is cheaper.

The investigation showed that in recent years destruction of the rainforest has increased.

For example, between 2009 to 2019 in Mato Grosso state – which stretches over the southern part of the Amazon and grows more soya than anywhere else in Brazil – 1,180 sq km of rainforest was felled on soya farms in order to grow other crops or to provide pasture for cattle ranching. This is according to data analysed by the Brazilian NGO Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) and shared with the investigation partners. The vast majority of this deforestation was illegal, lacking licenses under Brazil’s Forest Code.

That land area, according to the World Land Trust calculator, equates to an area nearly the size of Hong Kong.

Destination UK

In 2020 the UK imported more than 140,000 tonnes of soya from municipalities with at least 7 sq kms of hidden deforestation on soya farms, and about 50,000 tonnes of corn – both crops are used in the meat and dairy supply chains of major food retailers for animal feed.

According to Paul Morozzo, Senior Forest Campaigner at Greenpeace UK “Supermarkets cannot ignore the role of meat and dairy in the climate crisis. It’s time they took real action to end links to deforestation for good. That means dropping forest destroyers and reducing meat and dairy. Until they do, they may as well be handing out matches to light this years’ Amazon fires.”

Soya from the areas most at risk for this type of deforestation is regularly shipped to the UK, Spain and other European countries for use as livestock feed on factory farms by major grain traders including Bunge, which supplies soya to Spain and Cargill, a major UK supplier. Cargill’s customers include Tesco, Asda and Lidl.

The investigation established that, with trade links leading to Europe and China, certain Mato Grosso municipalities appear particularly vulnerable to this hidden deforestation. The analysis shows a strong flow of soya from these areas to the UK, suggesting that UK businesses could be turning a blind eye to deforestation in UK supply chains.

The Retail Soy Group, which represents leading retailers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl and Waitrose, acknowledged to the Guardian newspaper that there were limitations to the moratorium and said the new allegations “further highlight the need to have strengthened legal protections of these vital ecosystems”.

• Read the full investigation at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism website : https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2022-02-10/farms-touting-deforestation-free-soya-still-tearing-down-the-amazon and on the Unearthed website : https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2022/02/10/deforestation-free-soya-farmers-amazon-destruction

New research from The University of Texas at Austin shows that honey bees exposed to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, lose some of the beneficial bacteria in their guts and are more susceptible to infection and death from harmful bacteria.

Official have long insisted that glyphosate is safe for bees, or that bees are nto exposed to the weedkiller in any significant way, but in 2016 testing by the US Food and Drug Administration found residues of the weed killer glyphosate in samples of US honey suggesting that not only are the bees exposed ot it but that they bring it back to their hives.

The findings have implications for cities across the United States, where 15% percent of land is deemed “vacant” and often blighted or filled with trash and overgrown vegetation.

For the trial, published in JAMA Network Open, 541 vacant lots throughout Philadelphia were randomly assigned to one of three study arms: greening intervention, a trash clean-up intervention, or a control group with no intervention. The greening intervention involved removing trash, grading the land, planting new grass and a small number of trees, installing a low wooden perimeter fence, and regular monthly maintenance. The trash clean-up involved removing trash, limited grass mowing where possible, and regular monthly maintenance. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society LandCare program performed the greening, trash clean-up, and maintenance.

The researchers then measured the mental health of Philadelphia residents 18 months before and after nearby vacant lots had been converted into green spaces, as well as residents living near untreated abandoned lots, and those that just received trash clean-up. Participants were asked to indicate how often they felt nervous, hopeless, restless, depressed, that everything was an effort, and worthless.

Clean, green and happy

They found that people living within a quarter of a mile radius of greened lots had a 41.5% decrease in feelings of depression compared to those who lived near the lots that had not been cleaned and greened. Those living near green lots also experienced a nearly 63% decrease in self-reported poor mental health compared to those living near lots that received no intervention.

Results were most pronounced when looking only at neighbourhoods below the poverty line, with feelings of depression among residents who lived near green lots decreasing significantly – by more than 68%.

The findings add to the growing body of evidence showing how revitalized spaces in blighted urban areas can help improve safety and health, such as reducing crime, violence, and stress levels. The most recent study, from the same team and published in February of this year, found up to a 29% decrease in gun violence near treated lots. This latest work is believed to be the first experimental study to test changes in the mental health of residents after nearby vacant lots were greened.

A positive impact

“Dilapidated and vacant spaces are factors that put residents at an increased risk of depression and stress, and may explain why socioeconomic disparities in mental illness persist,” said lead author Eugenia C. South, MD, MSHP, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and a member of the Center for Emergency Care and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania. “What these new data show us is that making structural changes, like greening lots, has a positive impact on the health of those living in these neighbourhoods. And that it can be achieved in a cost-effective and scalable way – not only in Philadelphia but in other cities with the same harmful environmental surroundings.”

Interestingly, analyses of the trash clean-up intervention only compared to no intervention showed no significant changes in self-reported mental health.

“The lack of change in these groups is likely because the trash clean-up lots had no additional green space created,” said co-author John MacDonald, PhD, a professor of criminology and sociology at Penn. “The findings support that exposure to more natural environments can be part of restoring mental health, particularly for people living in stressful and chaotic urban environments.”

The study shows that adding green space to neighbourhoods should be considered alongside individual treatments to address mental health problems in low resource communities. Additionally, greening is an affordable approach, costing about $1,600 (£1200) per vacant lot and $180 (£140) per year to maintain. For these reasons, the authors said, vacant lot greening may be an extremely attractive intervention for policy makers seeking to address urban blight and promote health.

Citrus oils are easily pressed from the skin of the fruits and therefore can be produced in large quantities, say the researchers, which means the mandarin oil could be used in areas which have little or no access to an alternative.

The study in the journal Natural Product Research, looked at oil distilled from three types of citrus: mandarin (Citrus reticulata), Chinese wild mandarin (C. reticulata chinase Blanco) and a variety of sweet orange (C. sinensis Osbeck).

The C. sinensis oil was the most active against larvae, even at lower concentrations. It was also the most effective as a fumigant against adult mosquitoes. For both larvae and adults C. reticulata chinase was the second most effective oil followed by the C. reticulata oil. The researchers suggest that as each type of orange oil had different dominant volatile oil compounds they might also work well in combination.

With mosquitoes being responsible for the transmission of many diseases to humans and animals in the world due to rapid urbanisation and poor water management, the potential for an easily accessible and non-toxic mosquito control program is much needed.

In addition many conventional approaches can be toxic to humans, and there is evidence that the mosquitoes are becoming resistant to them.

Dr. Mohamed E. I. Badawy, lead author and professor at the Department of Pesticide Chemistry and Technology at Alexandria University in Egypt commented “This study, which we believe to be the first of its kind, shows that the essential oils from the peels of citrus plants were very effective against larvae and adults. This means there could be a natural and hugely accessible product available which could be used as a method of mosquito control.”

• For more on this subject see our article Natural insect repellents that bite back

One concept gaining momentum in this realm is green schoolyards. But what is a green schoolyard?

A new report, “Green Schoolyards Support Healthy Bodies, Minds and Communities,” that explores the concept of a green schoolyard was presented ahead of publication as this week’s American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition in Chicago.

“Green schoolyards can include outdoor classrooms, native gardens, storm water capture, traditional play equipment, vegetable gardens, trails, trees and more,” says Stephen Pont, at Dell Children’s Texas Center and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at UT-Austin Dell Medical School.

“And outside of school time, these schoolyards can be open for the surrounding community to use, benefitting everyone.”

Nature – “Vitamin N”

Green schoolyards offer an opportunity for children to experience a healthy outdoor environment as part of their daily lives. After school hours, they provide value to the entire community through improved health, higher rates of community and family engagement, and increased opportunities for active outdoor play and relaxation.

“Too many children have no access to quality school grounds. In many neighbourhoods, the standard play space is a barren asphalt playground or a concrete slab surrounded by chain link fence – a completely unsuitable environment for children’s play.” says Richard Louv, Co-Founder of the Children & Nature Network.

For this study, researchers summarised the growing body of peer-reviewed scientific literature documenting green schoolyard benefits to academic outcomes, beneficial play, physical activity, and mental health.

To date, the research on the benefits of green schoolyards has enabled 5 cities to implement such projects in collaboration with the Children & Nature Network and the National League of Cities. These include Austin, Texas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; San Francisco, California; Providence, Rhode Island; and Madison, Wisconsin.

“So many physicians and health professionals choose to spend their free time in nature, but we often forget that nature can be a powerful health intervention for our patients, both for the prevention and improvement of many medical conditions,” says Dr. Pont. “We should all be champions for kids and families getting more Vitamin N.”

• For more on this topic see A ‘dose’ of nature – just what the doctor ordered and Get kids outdoors to prevent nearsightedness

Now for the first time researchers from the UK think they know how it works.

As a result, say the scientists who reviewed hundreds of studies to reach their conclusions, it can even slash the chance of an early death by 16%.

The report was originally compiled by the Institute for European environmental policy (IEEP). Researchers there spent a year reviewing more than 200 academic studies on the links between nature and health resulting in one of the most wide-ranging examinations to date on this topic.

That document was published autumn 2016 and picked up by the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth Europe which further augmented it by focussing on the links between nature-related health outcomes and income inequality.

This showed further benefits even in deprived neighbourhoods where risks of both obesity and poor mental health are statistically much higher.

Vital to health

According to a growing body of evidence, health inequalities are linked to access to nature and access to nature is vital for good mental and physical health at all ages.

The FOE report cites research that 26% of England’s black and minority ethnic populations visit natural environments less than three times a year, compared with 15% of the rest of the population.

It points to a strong link between lack of access to nature areas and poor health outcomes and inequality. It associates nature deprivation with higher obesity levels, mental health problems, and mortality rates.

As a result, it says, access to nature as being inextricably linked to wealth inequality, because deprived communities typically have fewer natural environments within easy reach.

It calls for access to nature to be recognised as a fundamental human right, and for increased efforts to provide accessible and well maintained natural areas for particularly disadvantaged groups.

Previous research

There is now a huge amount of data to show that time in nature is important for our wellbeing.

Exposure to nature has been shown to switch the body into “rest and digest” mode where it can nourish, repair and promote well-being

In 2016 scientists from Australia and the UK say a ‘minimum dose’ of nature for us all could significantly reduce rates of depression and high blood pressure.

In another study, taking your exercise regime out of the gym and in the park was found to cut to the risk of suffering from poor mental health by half.

Previous US research has found that that simply giving hospital patients a window with a view of trees meant they recovered faster and were discharged a day earlier than those whose rooms faced walls.

How nature helps is multifaceted but one intriguing study found that ‘forest bathing’ – essentially walking in a forest environment – exposes you to ‘friendly bacteria’ and other natural substances that can help protect your health.

“The evidence is strong and growing that people and communities can only thrive when they have access to nature,” said Robbie Blake, a nature campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, which commissioned the analysis.

“We all need nature in our lives, it gives us freedom and helps us live healthily; yet deprived communities are routinely cut off from nature in their surroundings and it is suffocating for their well-being.”

The study, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and published today in Nature Communications, examined changes in populations of 62 wild bee species alongside oilseed rape cropping patterns across England between 1994 and 2011 – the time period spanning the introduction of wide-scale commercial use of neonicotinoids.

The scientists found evidence suggesting that neonicotinoid (‘neonics’) use is linked to large-scale and long-term decline in wild bee species distributions and communities.

The decline was, on average, three times larger among species that regularly feed on the crop such as Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) compared to species that forage on a range of floral resources, indicating that oilseed rape is a principle mechanism of neonicotinoid exposure among wild bee communities.

Neonicotinoids are a group of insecticide which can be applied to seed prior to planting. The active compound is circulates throughout the growing plant and as such can lead to potential ingestion where pollinators feed on the pollen and nectar of treated crops.

These findings add to previous small-scale and short-term exposure studies which have identified negative effects of neonicotinoids on honeybees and a limited number of commercially-bred wild bee species.

20% decline in some populations

For five of the species investigated, including the spined mason bee (Osmia spinulosa) and the furrow bee (Lasioglossum fulvicorne), neonicotinoid use was judged to be responsible for at least 20% of local population extinctions of wild bees.

According to the researchers, the data suggest that neonicotinoid use is correlated with wild bee biodiversity losses all over the country and has implications for the conservation of bee communities in intensively farmed landscapes.

The results add to an extensive body of evidence in a major review of the risks neonicotinoid pesticides pose to bees, currently being undertaken by the European Food Standards Authority and anticipated to be complete by January 2017.

Lead author, Dr Ben Woodcock, said, “As a flowering crop, oilseed rape is beneficial for pollinating insects. This benefit however, appears to be more than nullified by the effect of neonicotinoid seed treatment on a range of wild bee species.

Dr Woodcock adds that the effect of neonicotinoids is amplified by other environmental pressures including habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and other insecticides.