Impact on Environment
Australia’s environment is severely threatened by pesticides.
Pesticide use contributes to water contamination, biodiversity loss, climate change acceleration and soil degradation.
Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024–2030 names pesticides as a source of pollution driving ecosystem change and recognises that Australia has one of the highest extinction rates in the world.
Australia has set ambitious 2030 zero new extinctions and pollution reduction targets as part of its Strategy for Nature and commitments under the Global Biodiversity Framework.
What we need is action.
Water Contamination
Australia’s drinking water is now regularly found to be contaminated with pesticides. While Australians are advised that levels are within a safe range, what is considered safe often changes. Melbourne University research has also demonstrated that ‘safe’ levels of hazardous banned pesticides cause harm.
Once the envy of the world for our clean water, many Australians have lost trust in the water they drink because of pesticide pollution.
Pesticides often contain PFAS, also known as ‘forever chemicals’. PFAS are present in our drinking water and in levels considered dangerous and illegal overseas.
Pesticide pollution in Australia’s waterways is widespread.
Pesticide pollution is failing our Great Barrier Reef. The cocktail of pesticide mixtures is causing much more harm than previously hoped.
Great Barrier Reef scientists have been scathing about the APVMA’s role in harming the Great Barrier Reef.
The late Dr Jon Brodie, world expert on water quality from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said: ‘you can find atrazine in most waterways in Australia. It will be in the drinking water too. But it will never be banned in Australia, no matter what scientists find – because we have got the weakest pesticide regulator in the whole developed world. They are industry captured.’
Consider installing a filter on your drinking water given the range of toxins, including pesticides, now regularly present in our drinking water
Biodiversity Loss
Australia’s unique biodiversity is under threat from pesticides. Pesticides bioaccumulate, and are rapidly spread through the food chain harming all those they encounter. It has been estimated that over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target (such as bees and other beneficial pollinators, birds, soil, fish, frogs, running off into waterways etc), because they are sprayed or spread across entire agricultural fields.
Global wildlife populations have declined by 73% since 1970. Pesticides and intensive agricultural systems are a major contributor to this.
Australia’s Biodiversity Council have reported that a recent study found between 1-3 species of insects and other native invertebrates like pollinators, worms, snails and spiders, are becoming extinct in Australia every week. Quoting the media release: ‘Co-author Dr Jess Marsh from the University of Adelaide is a member of the Biodiversity Council and Invertebrates Australia. “Thousands of invertebrate species remain at high risk of extinction,” said Dr Marsh, “But we don’t have to accept their losses as inevitable. There is a lot we can do to prevent extinctions, including by protecting important habitats and reducing threats, such as pesticide use…It is great to see a growing recognition of the impact of pesticides and a move towards reducing their usage”’.
Australia’s marsupial population is facing an extinction rate found nowhere else in the world, which could be further increased because of exposure to atrazine.
Australia’s soil, our invaluable natural asset, is being severely damaged and degraded by pesticide pollution. The damage to soil by pesticides is unsustainable. It is now also emerging that pesticides can pollute soil for far longer than once thought.
Native birds are under threat from their exposure to pesticides. One example is our Black Cockatoos, whose population in Western Australia has been rapidly declining in part because of pesticide poisoning. See here for further.
Insect populations are facing catastrophic collapse around the world, with pesticides cited as a key contributor to this collapse.
Agricultural pesticides and intensive agriculture have been linked to widespread invertebrate biodiversity loss. Please visit Invertebrates Australia for further information about their crucial importance.
PFAS pesticides, aka ‘forever pesticides’
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is an umbrella term for a family of thousands of chemicals that known for their non-stick, waterproof properties. PFAS substances are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because of their extreme persistence in the environment. They are linked with a range of health issues including cancer, high cholesterol and immune system dysfunction.
Pesticide products used in Australia may contain a variety of chemicals that meet the PFAS definition, as they have in international jurisdictions. A list of pesticides containing PFAS can be found here at ‘Forever Pesticides: A Growing Source of PFAS Contamination in the Environment’.
The source of PFAS in pesticides can be the active ingredient itself, the product’s fluorinated container which leaches into the contents, or the product’s ‘inert’ ingredients.
Due to commercial secrecy, inert ingredients in pesticide formulations are not publicly disclosed, despite the dangers they may pose.
PFAS can be used as an active ingredient in pesticides because the fluorinated qualities of the chemicals make the pesticide more effective and stable. PFAS can also be used as an ingredient to extend shelf life and provide an even coating.
Australia lags the world in PFAS regulation. PFAS chemicals are now regularly detected in Australia’s waterways and drinking water.
For a thorough overview, see this report titled ‘Forever Chemicals are Pesticides, Too‘
International concern is mounting about the harm being caused by PFAS pesticides, particularly as regulators attempt to impose a narrower definition of PFAS, rather than the internationally accepted OECD definition.
For the historical background of PFAS chemicals, see this useful video: How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet
In Australia, on 22 August 2024, the Senate appointed the Select Committee on PFAS to inquire into the extent, regulation and management of PFAS.
PAA sent a submission to the Inquiry, urging the Australian Government to:
- Immediately ban the use of any pesticides which contain PFAS, including any associated with the National Fire Ant Eradication Program or FAST activities;
- Further engage, listen to and be directed by the legitimate and evidence-based concerns being put forward by affected communities of pesticide pollution;
- Re-evaluate the harm being caused by PFAS pesticides currently and the projections of harm for the medium and long-term in regards to pesticide pollution;
- Assess whether the application of PFAS pesticides violates Australia’s national and global commitments to environmental and health protections;
- Structurally reform the APVMA so that it is majority publicly-funded and publicly accountable, implementing the precautionary principle.
Ask your local authorities to stop spraying PFAS pesticides in your community.
Document the use of PFAS pesticides in your community.
Climate Impact
Pesticides are a key contributor to climate change.
99% of all synthetic chemicals, which include pesticides, are derived from fossil fuels.
“Reductions in pesticide use and the adoption of agroecology would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, while also reducing acute poisonings, long-term diseases like cancer, and other health impacts that rural communities face from pesticide exposure.” – Nayamin Martinez, Executive Director of Central California Environmental Justice Network.
We are in a cycle of intensive agriculture exacerbating climate change, with more pain to come in the future.
Toxic harvest: fossil fuel pesticides on our plates captures information on the relationship between pesticides and the fossil fuel industry.
More sustainable agroecology practices eliminate fossil fuel petroleum-based products and sequester atmospheric carbon in the soil, combating the climate crisis.
Find a useful open source, peer-reviewed literature review of regenerative agriculture from the Open Food Network Australia here.
Call on policy makers to support regenerative farming practices and pesticide reduction targets, and promote the rights of people most impacted by pesticide use
Soil Health
“We must remember that the soil is the foundation of all life. Without healthy soil, we cannot sustain healthy crops, healthy animals, or healthy people.” Tim Flannery, author and environmentalist.
The use of pesticides is incompatible with healthy soil. Pesticides pose a grave threat to organisms needed for healthy soil, by killing or harming soil invertebrates like earthworms, ants, beetles and ground-nesting bees.
The UN has warned the future of global soils looks “bleak” without immediate action, with the main causes of damage to soils being intensive agriculture, with excessive use of fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics killing soil organisms and leaving it prone to erosion.
The effects of pesticides in soil are particularly important because soil organisms drive many processes relevant for crop production eg. nutrient cycling, soil formation, and pathogen suppression and formation of organic matter.
Regulators consider none of these harms when approving pesticides for use.
A University of Sydney study in 2023 found that 80% of applied pesticides degrade into daughter molecules – or byproducts – into soil surrounding crops.
“This degradation of pesticides often occurs as a ‘cascade’ of molecules into the surrounding environment, which can persist in the environment for a long time and can be just as harmful as the parent molecule or applied pesticide. One such example is glyphosate. Although it is highly degradable, it breaks down into a molecule known as AMPA that is both highly persistent and toxic,” said Associate Professor Maggi.
Read here for further on the role that agricultural pesticides play in what scientists have dubbed the “bugpocalypse” – which has been said to be ‘destroying the very foundations of the web of life’.
The UN Environment Programme has cited pesticides as a key cause of soil damage globally.
We call on regulators to include the harm that pesticides cause on soil health and the threat this poses to humanity when reviewing pesticides.
Pesticide Action Australia 