Title: Toxic synthetic herbicide sales in Australia continue to rise
Convened under UN auspices in December 2022, the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-15) adopted the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF). Australia was among the parties to agree to Target 7 which aims to "reduce by half ... the overall risk posed by pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals". How is Australia going to meet this target when the latest available herbicide sales figures from the regulator (APVMA) show an alarming opposite trend is underway. Sadly, in the last ten years, herbicides sales in Australia have in fact almost tripled. Australia is very poorly positioned to meet the COP-15 target to reduce toxic pollution risks by 2030. Indeed, with the current levels of herbicide pollution in Australia, our impact on biodiversity already far exceeds a level necessary to protect ecosystem functions and services. Thousands of tonnes of toxic synthetic pesticides are being sprayed each year in Australia, often directly into waterways and areas where the last remaining pockets of native biodiversity struggle to survive. The effects are cumulative and may soon become irreversible. The Australian regulators cannot tell us anything more than that the total sale of herbicides is escalating uncontrollably. There is no oversight of the increase. The agrochemical regulators keep no aggregated record of pesticide use, so their policy officers do not know which chemical is used where, for what purpose, or for how long. Government departments cannot regulate substances they know almost nothing about. The time to act is now. As has been the experience of many other countries, the clean-up costs are already substantial, and the losses of our precious biodiversity will soon be permanent if the pollution is not addressed. Comment