NATURE WARS III

1
NATURE WARS III

• ISS 310
• Spring 2002
• Prof. Alan Rudy
• Tuesday, April 23

• Chapters 7 8
• Questions?
• Main Points?

2
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials

• Moving pollinating bees, not for honey, but to
  make fruit and vegetable production possible.
• Not necessary until 20th C
• before plenty of species of native bees
  coevolved with local plant species and crops
  5000 species in N. Am.
• Monocropping and pesticides have radically
  reduced wild bee populations and necessitated
  managed bee industrialization.
• Rather than change agriculture to foster and
  enhance feral bee populations and activity, we
  went with scientific management. -- remember
  Vancouver urban planning?

3
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials II

• Only recently have environmentalists begun to
  take notice of this kind of environmental
  concern.
• Keys
• Pesticides
• Monocropping
• Habitat Destruction
• High Managed Bee Populations
• Honey Bee introduced for honey, adapted to
  pollination.
• Honey Bee populations devastated first by the
  European tracheal mite and then the Asian varroa
  mite each accidentally introduced.

4
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials III

• Importation/xenotransplanted species often
  generate real bad pest problems
• PARASITORY AND PREDATORY PEST CONTROL INSECTS
• If there ever was a balance of nature, we have
  eliminated it, and much of contemporary
  agriculture is designed to restore the balance
  through management (122)

5
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials IV

• Imported pests have led to imported pest control
  insects.
• Imported plant pests have also occurred and done
  damage sometimes successfully address with
  imported natural biological controls.
• Know Winstons account of C.V. Riley, citrus
  scale and Australian beetles.

6
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials V

• Greatest experimentation with biological control
  from 1900-1945, the pesticides doom most plans by
  killing not only pests but also natural killers.
• Major natural killers
• wasps
• mites
• nematodes
• fish
• beetles
• bacteria
• fungi
• viruses

7
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials VI

• St. Johns Wort (Klamath weed) infestation treated
  successfully with beetles.
• Post-WWII DECLINE IN NATURAL ENEMIES RESEARCH
• Rooted largely in pesticide applications often
  led to more/new/worse pest outbreaks then before.
• No private industry doing this because of limited
  profitability also nature takes over while,
  with pesticides folks with pest problems always
  have to come back to the commercial well
  (foreshadowing biotech.)
• Only major markets are greenhouses.

8
Ch.7 Bees and Other Beneficials VII

• APPLIED BIO-NOMICS
• Small, elite private business in snooty
  retirement area of Vancouver Island.
• Issues of complexity of, poorly thought out, and
  over-regulation of natural enemies industry.
• What we have lost is nature. (139)

9
Ch. 8 FRANKENSTEIN PLANTS

• GMOs mixing and matching genes recombinantly or
  transgenically.
• who do you trust, scientists, activists, or
  regulators (or.)
• miracle cures come with a price.
• This stuff IS different than breeders who have to
  work with very closely related crops and animals
• Natural plant resistance co-evolved with pests
  over millenia biotech works in 5 year
  increments.

10
Ch. 8 FRANKENSTEIN PLANTS II

• Winston claims close, intensive, and
  well-regulated tests indicate that the things
  developed so far are pretty safe.
• Toxin-producing plants
• Plants with herbicide resistance
• resist herbicide binding.
• overproduce protein herbicide destroys
• produce enzymes to degrade/digest herbicide
• Major public-private collaborations and
  competitions for research moneys/patents (newly
  legal).

11
Ch. 8 FRANKENSTEIN PLANTS III

• Critics
• human health risks from consumption
• genes jumping from crops to weeds
• increased herbicide use
• accelerated pest resistance
• Regulatory agency strictness but reasonableness
• No labeling of consumption goods.
• Beware allergies one caught already.

12
Ch. 8 FRANKENSTEIN PLANTS IV

• Real worries
• gene jumping
• increased herbicide use
• resistance
• too effective, boom resistance
• whos going to regulate/enforce refuges?
• already happening Bt cotton
• Fred Gould, NCSU

13
CONCLUSION

• HERES THE DEAL
• THERE IS NOT DISCUSSION OF THE SOCIAL
  CONSEQUENCES OF THIS TECHNOLOGY (esp. around
  TERMINATOR technology).
• The only issues are environmental- and
  health-related what social consequences of
  environmentalism and public health advocacy in
  Gary, IN?