Tracking pesticide fate in conventional banana cultivation in Costa Rica: A disconnect between protecting ecosystems and consumer health.

Conventional banana cultivation in Costa Rica relies on heavy pesticide use. While pesticide residues in exported bananas do not generally represent a safety concern for consumers abroad, ecosystem and human health in producing regions are not likewise protected. In Costa Rica, most studies on pesticide residues in the environment are snapshots, limiting our ability to identify temporal dynamics that can inform risk mitigation strategies.

Modeling the dynamics of DDT in a remote tropical floodplain: indications of post-ban use?

Significant knowledge gaps exist regarding the fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants like dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in tropical environments. In Brazil, indoor residual spraying with DDT to combat malaria and leishmaniasis began in the 1950s and was banned in 1998. Nonetheless, high concentrations of DDT and its metabolites were recently detected in human breast milk in the community of Lake Puruzinho in the Brazilian Amazon.