Video - Animals are Dying Near Wind Turbines and Cell Towers - Farmers are Organizing in France

Mystery surrounds animal deaths on France's farms 

Farmers in France are claiming that electromagnetic fields created by wind farms and other electrical installations are leading to low productivity and high rates of mortality. 

But scientists who’ve looked into it have failed to detect any chain of cause and effect. 

The BBC went to western France to investigate. 

 Video produced by Hugh Schofield & Laurene Casseville

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One Million Species on the Brink of Extinction, Finds U.N. Report

A United Nations report described as the most authoritative and comprehensive assessment of global biodiversity ever published found that human exploitation of the natural world has pushed a million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction—with potentially devastating implications for the future of civilization.

Conducted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and released Monday, the report warned that species extinction rates are “accelerating” at an “unprecedented” rate due to the human-caused climate crisis and economic activity.

“The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,” Sir Robert Watson, chair of the IPBES, said in a statement. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide.”

While the report’s findings—compiled by a team of hundreds of experts from 50 nations—are dire and cause for serious alarm, Watson said, there is still a window for action.

“It is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,” said Watson. “Through ‘transformative change,’ nature can still be conserved, restored, and used sustainably—this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic, and social factors, including paradigms, goals, and values.”

Eduardo Brondizio, co-chair of the IPBES, echoed Watson, saying “business as usual has to end.”

The IPBES report comes as youth-led movements across the globe are organizing and taking to the streets en masse to pressure political leaders to take climate action in line with the urgency demanded by the scientific evidence.

Andrew Wetzler, managing director of the nature program for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told the Washington Post that the IPBES assessment shows “that nature is collapsing around us and it’s a real wake-up call to humanity.”

According to the report:

The average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20 percent, mostly since 1900;

      

More than 40 percent of amphibian species, almost 33 percent of reef forming corals, and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened;

      

The picture is less clear for insect species, but available evidence supports a tentative estimate of 10 percent being threatened;

      

At least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century and more than 9 percent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with at least 1,000 more breeds still threatened.

Andy Purvis, professor at the Natural History Museum in London and one of the report’s main authors, said the findings show that the “society we would like our children and grandchildren to live in is in real jeopardy.”

“This is the most thorough, the most detailed and most extensive planetary health check. The take home message is that we should have gone to the doctor sooner. We are in a bad way,” Purvis said. “I cannot overstate it. If we leave it to later generations to clear up the mess, I don’t think they will forgive us.”

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French farmers sue the state over mystery cow deaths they blame on electromagnetic fields

A group of French cattle farmers is suing the state over the mysterious death of hundreds of cows, which they believe are the victims of harmful electromagnetic fields.

Local vets are at a loss to explain the deaths.

Stéphane Le Béchec, 51, a Breton farmer in Allneuc, has lost 200 cows who died of unknown causes in the past three years and is closing his business.

He has identified several potentially harmful sources, including a transformer, mobile transmission towers and wind farms whose electric currents he says blight his land. “I noted that the voltmetre reacted strongly when I stuck it in the ground or in water,” he told Le Parisien.`

He has filed a legal complaint against “persons unknown” with the local prosecutor. 

Patrick Le Néchet, another farmer in nearby Prénessaye, has lost 120 cows in similarly mysterious circumstances in the past five years.

“This week, he found a dead calf by its mother. Sometimes we find three in one go. We never know what we'll find,” he said.

“We also have had blind calves with holes in their heads and deformed limbs that end up going round in circles and banging their heads on the walls,” he added. Others can no longer walk or refuse to be milked and produce very little, as well as bullocks that are stunted.

French farmers are suing the state over a spate of mysterious deaths of their cows CREDIT:  REGIS DUVIGNAU/REUTERS

The local agricultural chamber referred him to a geobiologist who noted that the water on his property carried a high amount of electricity, potentially linked to a neighbour’s photovoltaic station.

These are far from isolated cases, with ten registered in Brittany alone in the past two years. In two, the deaths started after the installation of wind farms. Others have been registered in Normandy and the Sarthe.

“They let farmers die when they have known there is a problem for the past 25 years and it’s getting worse,” said retired farmer Serge Provost, who told Le Parisien that the geology of the local soil and its conductivity is not sufficiently taken into account when installing high-tension pylons and other electrical devices.

A group of concerned farmers met on Friday in Le Mans to launch legal action demanding state compensation.

French cows under threat from electromagnetic waves says group of farmers CREDIT: DANITA DELIMONT/GALLO IMAGES 

The French government first ordered a study into the potentially harmful effects of electromagnetic fields on livestock in 1998, which proved inconclusive.

Several recent scientific studies in other countries suggest that dairy cows are sensitive to earth currents, which can have negative health effects on them.

Last year, an analysis of 97 studies by the EU-funded review body EKLIPSE concluded that electromagnetic radiation from power lines, wi-fi, phone masts and broadcast transmitters poses a ‘credible’ threat to wildlife - in particular to insect and bird orientation and plant health.

However the charity Buglife warned that despite good evidence of the harms there was little research ongoing to assess the impact, or apply pollution limits.

“There is a real problem that we need to deal with,” said Claude Allo, president of a French working group tasked by agricultural chambers to look into the issue.

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