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Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

theguardian.com

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Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#111

Post by ealhad »

vanderZwan wrote: post #106
ealhad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If farmers are “sacred”, how do you explain their horrible suicide rate? There are a lot of problems with the french agro-food industry; but I wouldn't blame farmers alone.

Is that measured in suicide attempts, or successful suicides? Because if it's successful suicides it might just be that the number of attempts is the same, but they have more effective methods of killing themselves, like pesticides: https://80000hours.org/2018/03/leah-utyasheva-pesticide-suic... (I know Sri Lanka isn't France, and we cannot assume anything about French pesticide laws. I'm just offering another possib…

That’s a good question, and an interesting point.

(though I think they mostly hang themselves)

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#112

Post by justinator »

isolli wrote: post #42
justinator wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the trend has been going on for a while. May we not forget the passenger pigeon? Naturalists in the 1800's would wipe out entire species getting specimens. I don't know if humans are all that great at tending the Earth's biomass.

> Naturalists in the 1800's would wipe out entire species getting specimens. This is the first time I hear this. Do you have examples?

Here is an article about collecting rare species:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/1...

People forget all those beautiful paintings from the Audoban Society were made by killing the bird, stuffing it, and then painting the stuffed bird.

The example I'd like to share is more from naturalists that would explore tropical islands in the Pacific, but that's not right at hand at the moment, as the examples were in one of those dusty books a friend had one time. But bird populations in decline in tropical islands is a big problem, especially because of the evolutionary niche they have:

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-hawaii-n...

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#113

Post by aurizon »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #29
aurizon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With on the seed, there is a lot less neonicotinoid than in an area spray. I tend to prefer minimalist use versus area use.

I mean, it’s great that there’s not a whole lot of this stuff being used, but if even small amounts are causing problems then it’s not that much of a saving grace.

I am suspicious of the neonics, but I am also suspicious of the many other insecticides that are used indiscriminately, and possible in excess dosages. I want to get rid of the bad materials and bad methods of use, and keep the good ones/ways. It is fairly obvious that excess insect kill is harming birds, but is it insecticides or a plague of spiders?

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#114

Post by nkurz »

Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said.

Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other covering a large agricultural region in central France.

“The situation is catastrophic,” said Benoit Fontaine, a conservation biologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History and co-author of one of the studies.

Does anyone have a link to the actual studies that are referenced? The article mentions Benoît Fontaine as one of the co-authors, but I don't see anything that matches in his recent publications:

http://cesco.mnhn.fr/search-publications?field_auteurs_autho...

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=f0kyLmwAAAAJ...

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#115

Post by istorical »

smt88 wrote: post #69
justboxing wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. In fact we've ( the US) gone the other way, electing a President and Party that openly denies climate change.

He is the most hated candidate and least liked president in modern history. He lost the popular vote. Republican dominance is a product of voter suppression and gerrymandering. I agree we're not doing a good job of protecting the environment, but Trump's election doesn't indicate that people's willingness to do so is waning. I've only ever seen evidence that people care more about climate change as time goes on and t…

If you want to lay blame at a single aspect of American government as you have, I think it's more fair to blame a two party system and cultural emphasis on wedge issues (abortion, gun control, gay rights, etc).

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#116

Post by Outpox »

Retric wrote: post #108
Outpox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My uncle has been a farmer for quite a while and his children took on the farm after he "retired" (you never really retire when you're a farmer). I've worked with them and I've never seen them water the crops. They don't even own the tools to do so and yet they're growing cereals (and a hundred cows) on 300 acres. They live in the east of France where I've never seen crops being watered. Not to say that you're wrong…

300 acres is a tiny farm especially for a mix of cereals and cows. It's only going to profitable with massive subsidies and as doing a better job is probably not that important vs. collecting government handouts. I don't know how most of France operates, but small operations are generally a vast waste of resources.

My bad I got my math wrong, it's 330 hectares which equals roughly 815 acres.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#117

Post by smt88 »

istorical wrote: post #115
smt88 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is the most hated candidate and least liked president in modern history. He lost the popular vote. Republican dominance is a product of voter suppression and gerrymandering. I agree we're not doing a good job of protecting the environment, but Trump's election doesn't indicate that people's willingness to do so is waning. I've only ever seen evidence that people care more about climate change as time goes on and t…

If you want to lay blame at a single aspect of American government as you have, I think it's more fair to blame a two party system and cultural emphasis on wedge issues (abortion, gun control, gay rights, etc).

I didn't lay blame. You seem to have misread my comment or conflated it with GP. I was just saying that Trump's election doesn't demonstrate a decline in environmentalism among the electorate.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#118

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

bambax wrote: post #73
adrianN wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative seems to be importing a lot of food that has been grown in countries that might care even less about the environment.

No, the alternative is changing agriculture, regulating it and helping it be more environmentally friendly, and not alleviating environment taxes on fuel and water. Tax pesticides, too.

If we regulate it and tax pesticides, then in a global market system, wouldn't those areas fail to compete with other countries that don't have those regulations?

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#119

Post by baud147258 »

bambax wrote: post #50

What's so infuriating in France is that farmers are basically sacred: nothing can be said, let alone done, to curb their behavior. They benefit from all kinds of advantages: they don't pay taxes on fuel and don't pay for water (water in France is very expensive for everyone else except farmers), have all kinds of special conditions and fiscal deductions, and that's in addition to the direct payments they get from the…

> The French countryside isn't charming, it's horrible

I don't know which countryside you've seen, but most of what I've seen is not ugly, with still a great number of forest and other non-ugly parts. Cultivated lands is half of the total surface. Also water is not expensive in France and is not used for agriculture in most parts of the country, where they get enough rain. Of course, I agree with you that seeing those ugly corn fields receiving water at 12h in summer is infuriating.

The part of the GDP is 4.5%, not 2%.

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