Toxic pesticide stitch-up is a death sentence for wildlife

A disgusting leak has exposed the hijacking of our democratic system by Europe’s most powerful corporate lobbying group. It’s killing vital wildlife protections. Plotting behind closed doors, billionaire agricultural business interests have systematically swapped the safety of our planet, our wildlife and our communities for cash.

The war on wildlife

The European Union planned to cut pesticide use by half to try to protect vulnerable, collapsing ecosystems. But Copa-Cogeca, Europe’s most powerful farming lobby, launched a ruthless campaign to stop it in the name of corporate profits. And our vulnerable wildlife is paying the price, with pesticides shredding bee populations, poisoning the earth and wiping out birds and wildlife that need a healthy ecosystem to survive.

Crucial reporting from @zdboren.

"Newly revealed documents from inside the most powerful farming lobby in Europe show how it delayed, gutted and overturned some of the most sweeping farming reforms in EU history…"https://t.co/ZehyAsLumr

— Jan Dutkiewicz (@jan_dutkiewicz) July 16, 2026

Yet this vicious lobby fought tooth and nail to protect these toxic, bee-killing chemicals, including glyphosate. Leaked documents capture the dark lobbying to protect glyphosate, which the World Health Organisation has classified as probably carcinogenic.

They chose to put their bank accounts first and as a result, have launched a campaign to shield industrial-scale animal cruelty, including vile practices such as foie gras and the fur markets.

The backroom heist of politics

This was not a democratic debate. This was a calculated political hijacking, and its aim was to run down the clock. Internal documents show this lobbying group used delay tactics with massive political pressure to force the European Commission to drop its green objectives.

In September 2022, internal memos suggested slowing the vital pesticide legislation until the 2024 European Parliament elections. Another two-year death sentence for our environment. The lobby group knew that as the elections neared, politicians were likely to drop the green rules to grab rural votes.

Copa-Cogeca was successful in delaying the process by demanding ridiculous impact assessments. This vile stalling tactic worked perfectly. The EU fully withdrew these crucial pesticide regulations in February 2024, and it has left wildlife at their mercy. Thomas Waitz, Green MEP from Austria sits on the Agricultural Committee said:

“Copa-Cogeca focused on sabotaging, delaying, and ultimately killing the sustainable use of pesticides regulation. They are acting in the interest of large agrichemical multinationals and against the wellbeing of small and medium farmers.”

Corporate profits over health

This corporate sabotage didn’t stop at poisonous pesticides. Copa-Cogeca ruthlessly targeted rules that were designed to oversee polluting and industrial factory farms. They specifically prioritised corporate profits over our human health and animal welfare. A major EU target to cut pesticides in half to protect biodiversity was ripped to shreds by this vile corporate giant.

This disgusting entity managed to raise the threshold for what counts as industrial farming by a whopping 50%. This corporate manipulation was hidden from the public. And politicians hadn’t even seen the proposed rules before they were decimated. Copa-Cogeca then coordinated with EU commissioners to attack and weaken health criteria.

This backroom deal has a massive human cost. It robs the public of €1.8bn in lost health benefits annually, all because of pollution. And even worse? The final laws excluded cattle farms ENTIRELY, and weakened the rules for pigs. Pigs have the same level of intelligence as a human toddler. And they have sentenced millions of them to horrific conditions in unregulated industrial farms. To live out their lives in tiny, filthy cages, waiting to die.

A hit list of wildlife

Tragedies are already unfolding in our forests and fields because of these lobbying efforts. Somehow, in all of this, wolves in the EU have now lost their strictly protected status. All because of the relentless lobbying of these corporate entities.

Copa-Cogeca spent years trying to strip the wolf of its protections. In June 2025, the EU amended its habitat directives to allow wolves to be slaughtered. The company celebrated this as a “major lobbying victory”.

Disgusting cruelty to wolves in Spain as EU lifts protection on this endangered species across the Continent pic.twitter.com/9rqvbFm7YI

— dominic dyer (@domdyer70) January 19, 2025

And even worse? They’re already planning their next massacre. Secretive files show the lobbying group is creating a new hit list of which species to target next. And when does this list stop? Because the pockets of these companies are endlessly deep, and it won’t cease until they’re full. They will not stop until they have wiped out everything in the name of profit.

We need to ask ourselves how long are we going to let these insatiable corporate dogs poison our planet? If we don’t stop these dodgy lobbyists and their backdoor tactics, there will be no more wildlife to protect.

Featured image via the Canary