Public consultation on the draft EFSA Scientific Committee Opinion on a systems-based approach to the environmental risk assessment of multiple stressors in honey bees

EFSA's Scientific Committee has launched an open consultation on its draft EFSA Scientific Committee Opinion on a systems-based approach to the environmental risk assessment of multiple stressors in honey bees. The scientific opinion is aligned to aspirations outlined in the EU Green Deal and the EFSA Strategy 2027, presenting opportunities and ideas facilitating discussion to advance environmental risk assessment of multiple stressors in honey bees. For this purpose, a holistic approach, based on monitoring and modelling strategies, is presented. This approach could substantially contribute to future development of environmental risk assessments of multiple stressors at larger spatial and temporal scales. The monitoring would rely on a network of sentinel hives placed across representative climatic zones and landscapes in the EU and connected to a platform for data storage and analysis. The modelling system, ApisRAM, which simulates a honey bee colony as accurately as possible would rely on data from the monitoring system, i.e. from the bee colonies and their environment. The model would be continuously informed by new scientific knowledge from research. It will be a supportive tool for beekeeping, farming, research, risk assessment and risk management, and it will benefit the wider society. Finally, gaps related to environmental risk assessment are highlighted. They will need to be filled to enable the systems-based approach to be fully implemented.

Interested parties are invited to submit written comments by 04/03/2021 (new deadline). Please use the electronic template provided to submit comments and refer to the line and page numbers. To submit additional data to support your comments or files, there is an upload function available in the tool (for a maximum size of 1Mb file). Otherwise you can also contact specific unit’s functional mailbox SCER.PublicConsult.10 [at] efsa.europa.eu .

Please note that comments will not be considered if they:

• are submitted after the closing date of the consultation
• are presented in any form other than what is provided for in the instructions and template
• are not related to the contents of the document
• contain complaints against institutions, personal accusations, irrelevant or offensive statements or material
• are related to policy or risk management aspects, which are out of the scope of EFSA's activity.

EFSA will assess all comments which are submitted in line with the criteria above. The comments will be further considered by the relevant EFSA Panel and taken into consideration if found to be relevant.

Copyright-cleared contributions

Persons or organizations participating in a Public Consultation of EFSA are responsible for ensuring that they hold all the rights necessary for their submissions and consequent publication by EFSA. Comments should inter alia be copyright cleared5taking into account EFSA’s transparency policy and practice to publish all submissions. In case the submission reproduces third-party content in the form of charts, graphs or images, the required prior permissions of the right holder(s) should have been obtained by the PC respondent.

Publication of contributions

Contributions will be published and may be re-used by EFSA in a different context. It should be noted that contributions submitted by individuals in a personal capacity will be published as such, indicating the author’s first and family name, unless a substantial justification for protection is provided by the respondent. Contributions submitted on behalf of an organisation are also made publicly available and attributed to the organization in question.