Scientists defend EU nature restoration bill

Brussels — Claims by centre-right legislators that the EU’s flagship bill to restore nature will hurt farmers and endanger food security are not supported by scientific evidence, more than 3,000 scientists said on Tuesday, in an open letter defending the proposal.

The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) — the biggest group of MPs in the European Parliament — has called for the EU bill, aimed at restoring damaged environments on 20% of Europe’s land and sea by 2030, to be rejected.

The scientists’ letter did not mention the EPP but responded to claims the group made publicly about the law, including that it will reduce Europe’s food production and threaten food security.

“Those claims not only lack scientific evidence, but even contradict it,” the letter said.

The 3,339 signatories are mostly environmental scientists, representing institutions including the universities of Athens, Bucharest, Delft, Helsinki, Oxford and Zurich.

The scientists said the biggest threats to food security were climate change and degradation of nature. Action was needed to restore nature and curb agricultural chemical use to maintain sustainable food production.

Food security is also driven by factors including food waste and access to affordable and nutritious food, the letter said.

The letter cited many scientific assessments including from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity.

“Once policymakers are taking very confident steps into the world of misinformation and basically what we nowadays call fake news, then scientists have the authority to say stop,” said Guy Pe’er, who led the letter and is a scientist with Germany’s Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

In response to the letter, EPP legislator Christine Schneider said the group supported the EU’s green agenda, but had specific concerns about the effect of the nature law.

“There are studies and analyses which show very clearly that the commission’s proposal will lead to a decline in food production,” said Schneider.

Asked for evidence to back up the EPP’s claims, a spokesperson for the group handed out studies, including one published in the academic journal EuroChoices.

That study said reducing land and pesticide use would curb agricultural production, but it emphasised that looking at this trend alone failed to account for the effect of declining biodiversity on food production, or how preventing nature loss can boost farming output.

The nature bill is heading for two tight votes in the European Parliament, the first on Thursday, and must also win approval from EU countries.

Reuters