Pesticides and the disappearance of fauna

The EU recently launched new rules on the use of pesticides aimed at beefing up food safety across the EU. Today, there is much more awareness about the harm these pesticides do to our health and the environment, especially to all living creatures. The European Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou called the new rules a milestone in the efforts to ensure that food in Europe is safe. They ensure that pesticide residue is as low as possible and has no harmful effect on citizens.

Apart from the safety factor, which naturally should be a priority in enforcing these rules, sometimes I wonder whether we have stopped seeing many species of butterflies, moths, bees and other insects in our yards and gardens due to varied pesticides which most farmers have used without any control.

I ask myself: Where is the swallow-tail butterfly (farfett tal-fejġel - in Gozo they call it many other names) which used to visit us in great numbers in our yards and gardens? The ladybird (nannakola) seems to have disappeared from many places. As little children we used to sing the rhyme nannakola mur 1-iskola; and I haven't seen a bumble-bee (żunżan bagħli) since I was a kid playing near the public drinking fountains. The death's-head hawk moth (baħrija ta' ras il-mewt) is also rare to see; and I haven't heard a cricket (werżieq ta' bil-lejl) this summer even though there are fields near where I live. As kids we used to catch them in plenty by laying a piece of dark cloth on the roof. The crickets used to gather underneath. We used to keep them in small cages or corned-beef tins with holes for air, giving them a piece of tomato to eat.

Today's children are lucky to see a snake in the wild. Luckily, the lizards - which became almost extinct probably through pesticides - are appearing again in numbers.

Bats which years ago used to fly in great numbers in the streets in the evening, after sunset, have become rare. Swallows and swifts don't appear in great numbers as they used to. But then this applies for many other birds.

It is a pity that through our negligence or misinformation we have killed so many creatures that enrich our fauna and give us so much pleasure. At least now we are all aware of the harm that pesticides do - especially to our health.