The Post – Andrea Vance – octubre 7, 2024
The Government’s environment watchdog will have to defend in court a decision not to review a key ingredient in weedkillers.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) had asked the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to reassess glyphosate ‒ the most commonly used herbicide in the world.
Roundup is the most recognised brand in New Zealand, although there are around 90 herbicides approved for use.
The environmental lawyers argued the chemical was first approved for use in the 1970s, prior to the establishment of the EPA, and has not been reassessed since.
That’s despite new scientific evidence that links the subject to the development of cancer, impacts on the human nervous and endocrine systems, and negative effects on ecosystems and wildlife.
But the EPA declined a reassessment, saying there was insufficient new evidence on toxicity. On Tuesday, the ELI lodged an application for a judicial review of that decision.
Senior legal adviser Tess Upperton said a growing body of scientific evidence pointed to harm to human health and the environment and a comprehensive risk assessment was “well overdue”.
“This is not necessarily about a ban. We are simply asking the EPA to properly consider that significant new information.”
Upperton said other countries had much stricter usage criteria. The European Union has banned the use on crops pre-harvest and several countries have banned the domestic use of glyphosate.
In 2015 the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic in humans”. Several countries then banned or restricted its use.
But other studies have also contradicted that, or been inconclusive.
In New Zealand, it is used to kill weeds in orchards, crops and vineyards, as well as private gardens, roadsides and public parks and by the National Wilding Conifer Control programme.
The ELI has asked the EPA if there were grounds to reassess the chemical and provided up-to-date research. But the EPA said that information wasn’t significant.
The High Court challenge will argue the EPA considered only glyphosate in isolation, not all the various chemical formulations it is sold as.
“As a result, the EPA’s decision left out this huge number of chemicals being used, which are also the most likely to be toxic to humans and diverse ecosystems,” Upperton explained.
“These chemicals end up everywhere. They are in our food, in our playgrounds, in our gardens, and in our waterways.”
Chris Hill, hazardous substances and new organisms general manager, confirmed the EPA was served with judicial review papers on Monday.
“We’re considering the claim and do not have any further comment at this time,” he said.
Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant that owns Roundup, said it was “rigorously tested in hundreds of studies, with the weight of this extensive body of science confirming that glyphosate is safe when used as directed and is not carcinogenic”.
“Leading health regulators in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Canada, Japan and elsewhere around the world have repeatedly concluded that glyphosate-based products can be used safely as directed and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic,” crop science communications manager Shaun Lindhe said.
He pointed to last year’s EU Commission decision to re-approve glyphosate for 10 years following “favourable scientific assessments”.
That decision was controversial and launched a wave of legal challenges earlier this year.