Join the Earth Day Swarm to Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to act to save honeybees from toxic pesticides? Let's swarm the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with demands for a ban on the pesticides that are killing the pollinators we need to grow food! Join us on Earth Day, Monday, April 22, at 12 noon, to deliver the petition to EPA headquarters in Washington, DC. You can RSVP below to join the Earth Day swarm!

Event Location

Environmental Protection Agency
302 12th St. NW
Washington, DC 20004

RSVP and meeting times and map here http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=70684 , or register through Facebook

Last year was one of the worst in U.S. history for honey production. Some beekeepers are reporting astonishing winter losses, upwards of 90 percent. Others have reported complete colony loss. Less honey means less food for overwintering bees, putting increased stress on colonies attempting to fight off the spread of colony collapse disorder (CCD).

CCD is the name given to the precipitous decline of honeybee populations around the world, beginning in 2006. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that, on average, beekeepers are losing over 30% of their honeybee colonies each year, twice what is considered normal. While CCD appears to have multiple interacting causes, a range of scientific evidence points to pesticide exposure as an important contributing factor. Neonicotinoids, a class of potent systemic insecticides, are particularly suspect, especially in combination with the dozens of other pesticides bees are exposed to in their hives and when foraging.

Source: Beyond Pesticides

Want to be inspired? Watch this amazing video: The Beauty of Pollination

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHkq1edcbk4&feature=youtu.be&t=54s

And since you took the time to read through this post, please take one more moment to sign this petition http://www.causes.com/actions/1686797-ban-the-use-of-neonicotinoid-pesticides-before-they-devastate-bee-populations-in-the-usa

 

EU Bans Bee-killing Pesticides

The European Commission has imposed a 2-year ban on the pesticides associated with colony collapse disorder in bees - good for them!

Neonicotinoid pesticides will be banned across the continent for the next two years starting no later than December 1. They are commonly used on crops such as corn, rapeseed, and cotton.



A bee collects pollen from a flowering cherry on April 22, 2013 in Potsdam, eastern Germany (DPA/AFP, Patrick Pleul)



In January, the European Food Safety Authority released a report concluding that these pesticides pose a "high acute risk" to honey bees.

The vote is a big setback for Syngenta and Bayer, who make the pesticides, spending millions of dollars lobbying European states against the ban.

Predictably, they claim a ban would be catastrophic to agriculture, but Italy, Slovenia and Germany enacted them a couple years ago with no ill effects. The European Commission will review the ban after two years to see if it should remain in force.

EU countries recently voted but didn't get a majority decision so the European Commission made an executive decision.

"I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over €22 billion ($28.8 billion) annually to European agriculture, are protected," says Tonio Borg, EU Health and Consumer Commissioner.

Unfortunately, the US is not showing the same leadership.

Beekeepers and environmental advocacy groups have continuously engaged the EPA on this issue, first filing an emergency legal petition to ban the pesticide clothianidin in March 2012. After being told to effectively "buzz off" by regulators, Beyond Pesticides joined with beekeepers, environmental and consumer groups in a lawsuit challenging the agency's oversight of these systemic pesticides, as well as their practice of "conditionally" registering pesticides without adequate data.

More than 30 studies conducted during the past three years show adverse effects on bees and other insects from use of these insecticides, reports The Independent.

Honey bee populations have been dropping by a third each year, and although there are other causes for this rapid drop in population that must also be addressed, banning these pesticides are an important part of that. Other causes include loss of habitat and the reliance of conventional agriculture on monocultures.

Clothianidin and thiamethoxam first became heavily used in the mid-2000s, at the same time beekeepers started observing widespread cases of colony losses.

The lawsuit against the EPA also challenges the use of so-called "conditional registrations" for these pesticides, which expedites commercialization by bypassing meaningful premarket review. Since 2000, over two-thirds of pesticide products, including clothianidin and thiamethoxam, have been brought to market as conditional registrations.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/24831