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By Brian Unwin and Jonathan Brown

The Independent - UK



The future of nearly half of all European bird species is under threat because of man's impact on the environment, a report warns today.



A study by BirdLife International to mark the 25th anniversary of the European Union birds directive, amounts to the grimmest prognosis yet for avian life on the continent. Earlier this year, a team of international scientists caused widespread alarm when they warned that global warming threatened a quarter of all European bird species over the next 50 years. But now conservationists have found that no less than 226 species - 43 per cent of the total regularly occurring in Europe - have an uncertain future.



A conference in the Netherlands today will hear how, in the 10 years since the publication of BirdLife's first Birds in Europe study, an additional 45 species have declined to the extent to which they are considered under threat. The trend shows every sign of accelerating despite the protection afforded to wild birds under the EU directive.



More: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/enviro ... ory=580556

It's also why so many oppose biotechnology with pesticide and herbicide use tied in to certain seed types, the result is good crops but everything else around gets killed. no insects no birds, no flowers no bees, we end up dependent on the biotech companies who have no other interest but their own in mind. Just drive in to the countryside to a heavily farmed area and listen, (at least in the UK) you hear nothing except the sound of cars in the distance.

The same with the use of antibiotics and hormones in cattle and chickens. Oestrogen is getting in to our streams in some areas and changing the sex ratios of the fish, Run off from fields destroys the ecology of our rivers and we are expected to trust the agrichemical companies to behave responsibly.

gmc wrote: we are expected to trust the agrichemical companies to behave responsibly.