Speaker
Description
EU law defines pesticides as the entirety of biocides and plant protection products. Both
groups of substances must undergo a complex environmental risk assessment in
authorisation procedures in order to be marketed and used. Despite these
requirements, according to current knowledge plant protection products in particular
have a serious impact on biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems and also pollute
groundwater. The search for causes leads to interesting research questions. These are
only partly in the field of natural sciences. Rather, the bottleneck for the necessary
reform of environmental risk assessment and environmental risk management are often
political and economic problems that are, however, cloaked in scientific terms. Against
this backdrop, the presentation shows starting points for the possible further
development of the scientific work of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental
Research.
