A new study led by researchers from The University of Sydney has found that agricultural pesticides leach into the world’s rivers and oceans each year at an alarming rate, damaging a variety of ecosystems.
Every year, agricultural operations around the world use more than three million tons of pesticides, but not a lot is known about precisely where these toxic chemicals go after they are applied to crops, a press release from The University of Sydney said.
The study looked at where 92 of the most frequently used agricultural pesticides travel after application and found that every year about 77,162 tons of potentially hazardous chemicals leach into aquifers. These pollutants have a damaging effect on freshwater resources and ecosystems.
“Our study has revealed that pesticides wander far from their original source. In many cases these chemicals end up a long way downstream and often, though in much smaller amounts, all the way to the ocean,” said associate professor Federico Maggi, the study’s lead author from The University of Sydney’s School of Civil Engineering, in the press release.
The study, “Agricultural pesticide land budget and river discharge to oceans,” was published in the journal Nature.
The study revealed that approximately 80 percent of pesticides applied to crops end up degrading into byproducts known as “daughter molecules” in the surrounding soil.
“This degradation of pesticides often occurs as a ‘cascade’ of molecules into the surrounding environment, which can persist in the environment for a long time and can be just as harmful as the parent molecule or applied pesticide. One such example is glyphosate. Although it is highly degradable, it breaks down into a molecule known as AMPA that is both highly persistent and toxic,” Maggi said in the press release.
The researchers found that, while just a fraction of pesticides make their way into river systems after they are applied, when they do reach the water most of their active ingredients eventually end up in the world’s oceans, bringing negative impacts to coral reefs and marine life, putting both freshwater and marine food chains at risk.
“On paper, 0.1 percent leaching into fresh waterways might not sound like much,” Maggi said. “But it only takes a tiny amount of pesticides to have a negative impact on the environment.”
The research revealed that 805 tons of pesticides end up in rivers annually, causing about 8,078 miles of rivers to have chemical concentrations that are higher than the safety limits for some invertebrates and aquatic plants.
“We must urgently adopt sustainable management strategies to promote reductions in field applications of harmful pesticides and set in place systems to effectively monitor their use under the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda,” said Dr. Francesco Tubiello, senior environmental statistician at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization and co-author of the paper, in the press release.
For the study, the scientists used publicly available geospatial data. But because the analysis did not include all pesticides, the study’s authors said their finds are a conservative estimate. The study did not consider pesticides used in public spaces, private residences, aquaculture or legacy pesticides — chemicals like DDT that have been banned or discontinued due to health risks — and thus the risk of chemical exposure for people and ecosystems could be higher than the findings suggest.
Maggi said it was possible to reduce pesticides globally while maintaining food security as long as pesticide toxicity and use are reduced in collaboration with food producers, since even low amounts of various highly toxic pesticides present a high risk for some organisms.
“It is not the pesticide use only that is important,” Maggi said, as The Guardian reported. “What is important is the load – that is, the applied mass and toxicity of individual active ingredients.”
Maggi and a separate research team outline recommendations for reducing the use of pesticides in another paper published last month in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
“Globally, there is a lot of room to increase efficiencies and yield while still supporting an abundant food supply through new technology and modern crop management practices,” Maggi said in the press release.
We already know that plastic is a top threat to marine life, with over 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste entering the oceans each year. But a new study has found that 92% of global coral reefs surveyed, even remote reefs, are covered in plastics.
The study, published in the journal Nature, surveyed 84 coral reef systems, both shallow and deep, at 25 locations across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. They found that the coral reefs were more impacted than other marine ecosystems (outside of coastal ecosystems like beaches and wetlands) by plastic and other waste.
“Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing problems plaguing ocean ecosystems, and coral reefs are no exception,” Hudson Pinheiro, lead author of the study and biologist at the Center for Marine Biology of the University of São Paulo, said in a statement. “From macroplastics that spread coral diseases to fishing lines that entangle and damage the structural complexity of the reef, decreasing both fish abundance and diversity, pollution negatively impacts the entire coral reef ecosystem.”
The researchers found that the deeper into the oceans they studied, the more plastic they found. About three-fourths of the plastic debris found in the study was from fishing gear. Most of the plastic debris found, about 88% of the total debris, was larger than two inches.
“It was surprising to find that debris increased with depth since deeper reefs in general are farther from sources of plastic pollution,” Luiz Rocha, senior author of the study and curator of ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, said in a statement. “We are almost always the first humans to set eyes on these deeper reefs, and yet we see human-produced trash on every dive. It really puts the effect we have had on the planet into perspective.”
The researchers hypothesize that the higher amounts of trash at greater depths could be because of waves carrying trash away, humans collecting trash from shallow reefs, or shallow reefs growing over the debris.
In the study, scientists found that Comoros, a country of three islands off the coast of eastern Africa, had the highest pollution density. Here, they found about 84,500 pieces of debris per square kilometer.
The researchers recommended that in addition to improvements in waste management and reducing single-use plastic, there needs to be innovations in fishing gear to make it biodegradable.
“How can we change the ropes, the nets?” Pinheiro told NPR. “We need to find a biodegradable material, like made from fibers as we used to do before.”
We can also look to places that were found to have less plastic pollution, such as the Marshall Islands, for inspiration on curbing this pollution.
“Despite the disturbing overall trend, there were some places where we found relatively little debris, which shows us that there are effective strategies for preventing plastic pollution,” study co-author Bart Shepherd, director of the California Academy of Sciences Steinhart Aquarium, said. “If we act fast and employ science-based solutions, there absolutely is hope for coral reefs.”
This month, a small group of diplomats is meeting to hash out a plan that could affect the future of nearly half of Earth’s surface — including regions containing metals that are vital for the energy transition, like nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese.
That group is the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, an autonomous international organization tasked with regulating mining on the ocean floor, in waters outside any nation’s jurisdiction. On July 9, the regulatory body missed an important legal deadline to finalize those rules. Now the ISA is scrambling to complete them, or agree to a fall-back plan, before companies start applying for deep-sea mining permits.
The stakes in this regulatory race are high. Some deep-sea ecosystems are rich in metals used in electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. To transition off fossil fuels, the world needs to dig up enormous quantities of these metals, and deep-sea mining proponents say that can be done with less impact on the ocean floor than on land.
A low-impact mining industry is unlikely to materialize in the absence of ISA rules governing environmental standards and oversight. However, if a company submits a commercial deep-sea mining application before the ISA completes those rules — officially called the Mining Code — the agency will be legally obligated to consider the request nonetheless. Some industry watchdogs fear this will trigger a literal race to the bottom, in which companies destroy fragile seafloor ecosystems in the pursuit of profits.
But a catastrophic outcome is far from assured. Pradeep Singh, an ocean law expert at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam who attends the ISA meetings and advises governments on deep-sea mining, says member nations have rallied behind the idea that there must be regulations in place before any deep-sea mining companies are given the go-ahead — and that there are several options on the table to ensure that outcome. States, Singh said, are starting to ask: “Do we really want to rush this process for the benefit of one private mining company?”
Singh is referring to The Metals Company, the Canadian mining firm at the center of the high seas hullabaloo. In the summer of 2021, the Pacific Island nation of Nauru gave the ISA notice that a subsidiary of the firm, which Nauru is backing as a state sponsor, intended to submit an application to begin deep-sea mining. The Metals Company is one of 18 commercial or state-backed entities that have received exploration permits from the ISA to test technology, take samples, and investigate the overall resource potential of deep-sea rocks called polymetallic nodules, in areas that each span nearly 30,000 squares miles. No company has been granted a contract to mine underwater.
No company has been granted a contract to mine deep-sea rocks called polymetallic nodules. Wolfram Kastl / Greenpeace
In announcing The Metals Company’s plan to become the first, Nauru activated the “two-year rule,” an obscure legal provision that obligates the ISA to finalize mining regulations within that time frame, or consider any applications if the deadline passes before the rules are done. Nauru and The Metals Company might have been hoping that the ISA would buckle down and finish a rulemaking process that began in 2014. But the sudden imposition of a deadline came in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had caused ISA negotiations to grind to a halt.
Negotiations resumed last year, but at the end of the ISA’s last meeting in March, the Mining Code was far from complete. The next meeting of the ISA Council, the key group of negotiators tasked with hashing out its details, began on July 10 — a day after the two-year deadline passed.
If the ISA Council manages to finalize the Mining Code by July 21, it could be put before the entire ISA Assembly — including representatives of 167 countries and the European Union — for a vote at the end of the month. Many ISA observers think that’s extremely unlikely, considering the wide range of issues that still need to be worked out within the code itself, including setting the overarching environmental goals and objectives of deep-sea mining, public consultation processes related to environmental plans, and how compliance inspections will work. But Singh points out that the council did reach one important decision at its March meeting: that commercial deep-sea mining shouldn’t happen in the absence of regulations.
Part of the council meeting taking place this week will be devoted to discussing what the ISA should do if Nauru, or another country, submits an application for commercial deep-sea mining before the Mining Code is complete. The ISA could, for instance, decide that it will start considering applications immediately, but it will defer making any decisions about them until regulations are in place. Or it could grant an applicant’s mining plan “provisional” approval, but hold off on the negotiation of the final contract until the rulebook is finished. The ISA, Singh says, can also choose to reject any applications that don’t meet its standards. But in the absence of a Mining Code, it is unclear what standards it would base such a decision on.
More dramatically, the ISA could choose to impose a temporary pause or mining moratorium — something that major environmental organizations like Greenpeace, as well as multinational corporations like Google and Patagonia, have called for in recent years. “If governments are serious about their environmental credentials, they have to say no to deep-sea mining,” said Arlo Hemphill, a senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace USA. “This is the moment to take the wind out of the sails of an industry that has no future.”
“A moratorium or pause is the only responsible way forward at the moment,” deep-sea biologist Diva Amon told Grist. Amon is lead author of a study, published Tuesday in Nature npj Ocean Sustainability, concluding that rising ocean temperatures will cause the range of commercial fish species like yellowfin tuna to overlap more with areas of the eastern Pacific where companies wish to mine. Also on Tuesday, several seafood groups released a letter calling for a pause on deep-sea mining until there is a “clear understanding” of its impacts on the marine environment.
Some industry watchdogs fear a literal race to the bottom, in which companies destroy fragile seafloor ecosystems in the pursuit of profits. NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program
But Singh feels that a pause or ban on mining is less likely than the ISA simply kicking the can down the road, considering that fewer than two dozen member states have voiced support for such action. (Their ranks, however, are growing: Ireland called for a “precautionary pause” on mining last week, while Canada came out in support of a moratorium on Monday.) “What’s more likely is that we’ll just extend the negotiations” into the fall or next year, Singh said.
Taking additional time to complete the regulations would also give the ISA an opportunity to sort out issues that are outside the scope of the Mining Code but intrinsically related to deep-sea mining. These include figuring out how to share the economic benefits of the industry in an equitable manner, and how to compensate developing countries whose land-based mining industries are harmed by competition at sea — something African nations have been particularly vocal about. That competition could be significant: The Metals Company estimates the area of the Pacific seafloor it wishes to mine contains enough nickel, manganese, copper, and cobalt “to electrify the entire U.S. passenger car fleet.” And it is just one company.
While many observers are worried about how the ISA will deal with mining applications submitted in the coming weeks or months, there also is no guarantee those applications will appear.
At the close of the ISA’s March meeting, Nauru stated that it “will not entertain an application for a plan of work” from The Metals Company in July to avoid influencing the ongoing negotiations. The nation did not promise to wait any longer. But Singh points out that states sponsoring mining companies expose themselves to potential legal liability for mining activities. One role of the Mining Code, Singh says, is to “set the parameters” of sponsor state liabilities.
“If you’re agreeing to sponsor a contract in the absence of regulations, you’re agreeing to sponsor a contract in the absence of protection for yourself,” Singh said. “You’re signing a blank check.” The government of Nauru did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.
A spokesperson for The Metals Company told Grist in an email that the company would prefer “to submit an application with exploitation regulations in place.” However, the spokesperson added that the firm retains “the legal right to submit an application in their absence and to have this considered by the Council.” The Metals Company will only submit an application for a commercial deep-sea mining contract after it completes “a high-quality, comprehensive, science-driven environmental and social impact assessment,” the spokesperson said. The company declined to respond to critics’concerns that rushing into deep-sea mining with little understanding of its long-term effects on ecosystems could significantly harm biodiversity and processes like deep-sea carbon sequestration.
Gerard Barron, chairman and CEO of The Metals Company, hopes that his company will be the first to mine the seafloor for nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese. Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The Metals Company also declined to say when it might be ready to apply for a commercial deep-sea mining contract. In an investor update in May, the firm indicated that it planned to do so in the second half of 2023. But Andrew Thaler, a deep-sea ecologist and the CEO of Blackbeard Biologic, a marine science and policy consultancy, cautioned that corporate timetables are often optimistic, and that he takes all such projections with “a grain of salt.”
Thaler, whose doctoral research was sponsored by a deep-sea mining company and who has participated in best-practice and risk-management workshops for the industry, says that the majority of people involved with deep-sea mining see themselves as environmentalists. “They genuinely believe we are facing a planetary crisis,” Thaler said, and that they “found a way to get us off fossil fuels faster, and it’s going to involve some exploitation of seafloor.”
But Thaler worries that if the industry tries to push forward too quickly, it will undercut its own sales pitch as a lower-impact alternative to land-based mining.
Deep-sea mining companies have “an opportunity to prove there is a way to do commercial exploitation of natural resources that’s marginally more conscientious and sustainably minded,” Thaler said. “Why throw all that away just to get mining two years earlier?”
Editor’s note: Greenpeace is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers play no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
Following a tense debate, the European Parliament has voted in favor of a Nature Restoration Law that establishes legally binding targets to restore degraded natural areas in the European Union (EU). It is the first major piece of legislation to protect biodiversity in the EU in 30 years.
Members of Parliament (MEPs) said the restoration measures must cover at least one-fifth of the land and sea areas in the EU and be in place by 2030, a press release from the European Parliament said.
“The Nature Restoration Law is an essential piece of the European Green Deal and follows the scientific consensus and recommendations to restore Europe’s ecosystems. Farmers and fishers will benefit from it and it ensures a habitable earth for future generations,” said MEP César Luena, a Spanish politician who was one of the biggest champions of the measure, in the press release.
The bill passed 336 to 300, with 13 abstentions, and will now pass to a committee of European representatives, reported The New York Times.
Restoring ecosystems is essential to battling biodiversity loss and climate change, as well as reducing risks posed to food security, MEPs emphasized. They added that the new law does not interfere with the creation of renewable energy infrastructure, and does not require new protected areas to be created in the EU.
With more than 80 percent of European habitats suffering, the continent was in desperate need of a binding law to restore the continent’s wild spaces.
“European nature is in a dire state, but this vote shows that there is still hope to restore and grow what’s left,” said Špela Bandelj, project manager for Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe Biodiversity, in a press release from Greenpeace. “So far governments and the EU have failed to act. The nature restoration law is a clear benchmark to judge them on their actions on the ground.”
Parliament said the new law must support international commitments by the EU, especially the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity framework, which was adopted at the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022.
“It’s a huge social victory,” Luena said, as The New York Times reported. “It’s good for everybody. Because if you have healthy ecosystems, then the economic systems which depend on these ecosystems are going to be healthy themselves.”
Before the law can take hold, EU countries must quantify the restoration area needed to achieve restoration goals for each type of habitat, and the European Commission must provide data on the conditions needed for long-term food security.
The possibility of restoration law targets being postponed in the event of exceptional socioeconomic circumstances was held open by Parliament.
Within a year of the law coming into force, assessments of any gap between available EU funding and the financial needs of restoration would have to be assessed by the Commission, and funds to make up the difference would need to be found.
The Commission has said that, for each euro invested in the new legislation, benefits of at least eight euros would be reaped.
Parliament will now begin negotiations on the final draft of the Nature Restoration Law.
“Our position adopted today sends a clear message. Now we must continue the good work, defend our ground during the negotiations with member states and reach an agreement before the end of this Parliament’s mandate to pass the first regulation on nature restoration in the EU’s history,” Luena said in the press release.
