Guidance to develop specific protection goals options for environmental risk assessment at EFSA, in relation to biodiversity and ecosystem services

Abstract

Maintaining a healthy environment and conserving biodiversity are major goals of environmental protection. A challenge is that protection goals outlined in legislation are often too general and broad to be directly applicable for environmental risk assessment (ERA) performed by EFSA. Therefore, they need to be translated into specific protection goals (SPGs). This Guidance presents a framework, which accounts for biodiversity and ecosystem services, to make general protection goals operational for use in all areas of EFSA's ERAs. The approach to follow has three sequential steps: (1) the identification of relevant ecosystem services; (2) the identification of service providing units (SPUs) for these ecosystem services; and (3) the specification of options for the level/parameters of protection of the SPUs using five interrelated dimensions. This last step involves the specification of options for the ecological entity and attribute to protect and the magnitude, temporal scale and spatial scale of the biologically relevant and, in the case of regulated products, tolerable effects, the latter defined in dialogue with risk managers. In order to promote transparency and consistency when developing options for the level/parameters of protection, this guidance provides considerations to justify the selected options.

A Simplified Population-Level Landscape Model Identifying Ecological Risk Drivers of Pesticide Applications, Part One: Case Study for Large Herbivorous Mammals

“…In line with the EFSA Scientific Committee and PPR Panel [2,33] specific protection goals linked to the provision of ecosystem services can be established through five complementary dimensions: ecological entity, attribute, magnitude, temporal, and spatial scales. For wild mammals, the ecological entity is the population, and the most relevant attributes of survival and reproduction.…”

“…Exceeding the accepted level of risk means non-approval or mandatory risk mitigation options, such as maximum application dose, limited number of applications within the season, untreated buffer zones, etc. In the EU system, the protection goals are generic, although the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has suggested the development of specific protection goals [2], based on the concept of ecosystem services. For terrestrial mammals, current protection goals include acute lethality and markers for population level effects.…”

Revisiting Risk Governance of GM Plants: The Need to Consider New and Emerging Gene-Editing Techniques

“…As a case in point specifically related to risk governance, we can return here to the challenge of communication between risk assessors and risk managers [a challenge recognized by EFSA in its 2016 guidance on specific protection goals for environmental risk assessment (EFSA Scientific Committee, 2016)]. EFSA guidance holds only that assessors and managers of risk are appropriate authorities to set specific protection goals (SPGs), identify stressors and hazards, and determine appropriate exposure pathways and adverse effects for risk assessment.…”

“…EFSA guidance holds only that assessors and managers of risk are appropriate authorities to set specific protection goals (SPGs), identify stressors and hazards, and determine appropriate exposure pathways and adverse effects for risk assessment. On one hand, SPGs are defined as, “Explicit and unambiguous targets for protection extracted from legislation and public policy goals” (EFSA Scientific Committee, 2016, p. 9). On the other hand, the very approach that EFSA guidance states should be used to set these “explicit and unambiguous targets”—ecosystem services valuation—depends on complex, ambiguous, uncertain, and contested methodology (c.f., Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA], 2005; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [DEFRA], 2007).…”

Phytotoxic Effects of Antibiotics on Terrestrial Crop Plants and Wild Plants: A Systematic Review

“…In 2010, the European Food Safety Authority published a framework to identify specific protection goals for the biological community based on ecosystem services that can be affected by plant protection products (PPP), such as conserving biodiversity (European Food Safety Authority 2010 , 2014 ; European Food Safety Authority 2016 ). Furthermore, stakeholders at a workshop of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) in Europe concurred that wild (non-crop) species need to be protected at the level of the population or higher, and that species abundance, biomass, and cover are important attributes associated with maintenance of ecosystem services (Arts et al 2015 ).…”