Reacción a "The use, toxicity and ecological harm of pesticides are increasing at the global scale"

This is a highly relevant, high-quality study based on Total Applied Toxicity (TAT), an environmental indicator that makes it possible to predict the potential impact of plant protection products on biodiversity. This indicator is calculated using data on the agricultural use of these products and their toxicity to different groups of non-target species. It is therefore a particularly useful indicator in the context of the United Nations Global Biodiversity Framework, which set the target of reducing the risks posed by plant protection products by 50% by 2030. Within this framework, the study analyses global trends in this index for 625 plant protection products between 2013 and 2019 and applies spatial normalisation, thereby enhancing its predictive power at large scales.

Overall, the results show that TAT is increasing globally for the vast majority of the species groups included in the analysis. These results may be partly underestimated, given that data on pesticide use by crop and country are often limited or incomplete and not always available by individual product, which hampers accurate assessment. Nevertheless, the findings are consistent with the declining trends reported for numerous invertebrate and vertebrate species, as well as plants, associated with agricultural landscapes worldwide.

At present, close to four million tonnes of plant protection products are used globally—twice as much as in the 1990s—and their use continues to rise. An increasing number of studies warn of the detection of residues in a wide range of environmental and biological matrices, including in humans. Plant protection products are synthetic chemical substances designed to act lethally on target organisms, but they can also exert sub-lethal and silent effects through other mechanisms in non-target organisms. As a result, their impacts on non-target species often go largely unnoticed, meaning that contamination by plant protection products is frequently underestimated, despite its major significance for the overall health of ecosystems.

In conclusion, this is a key piece of research that highlights the urgent need for substantial global action—such as agricultural diversification, less intensive soil management, greater conversion to organic farming, and a shift towards less toxic plant protection products—if the United Nations’ goal of safeguarding biodiversity is to be achieved.