This week, Cat Turner, secretary of the Isle of Man Friends of the Earth, looks at new legislation which aims to protect bees
--------------------
This column has had plenty to say in the past about how reliant we are on our stripy little buddies.
Without them, there’d have been precious little on our breakfast plates this morning, since (depending on your diet) foods pollinated by bees account for between 30 and 60 per cent of what we consume each day.
They’re essential for growing at least two thirds of the world’s food crops – if we had no bees tomorrow, billions would die of hunger.
And I’ve also banged on about how vulnerable the little chaps are at present; around the world, bee populations are – no exaggeration – absolutely plummeting, with damaging pesticides, herbicides, monocrop agriculture, habitat loss and (in the UK but not here in the Isle of Man) varoa mite adding to the woes of more and more weather wierding.
In the past couple of weeks alone, there have been multiple reports of mass bee die-offs some in the (I’m not kidding) millions.
In one notable case some tens of thousands of crunchy little corpses were found strewn across one of those humongous parking lots, overshaded by an array of linden trees which had just been sprayed by a chemical cocktail known to knock out bees’ nervous systems.
Neonicotinoid pesticides are the best-known of these offenders, but they’re not the only ones.
So hurrah for a spot of good news. The European Union has just announced a new ban on Fipronil, yet another bee-toxic agricultural poison.
Fipronil is produced by those lovely boys at Bayer, a huge and powerful German chemicals company.
It’s a nerve agent and has been widely used by farmers to kill off insects, but of course it’s been killing the bees too.
You might come across this charmless cocktail under the brand name ‘Regent’.
From December 31, it’ll be illegal to use Fibronil to field crops such as sunflower seeds and maize right across Europe (hurraaaay!).
It will still be allowed in greenhouses, and on the sort of legumes (leeks, onions, etc) which are harvested before they flower, posing much less of a risk to foraging bees.
This comes hard on the heels of an earlier ban in April this year of three other nasties, all of them neonicotinoids and all of them previously very heavily used (double huraaay!).
It reflects growing concerns about the collapse in honeybee populations, and the knock-on effects of this on food security in an already pressured system.
The UK has to follow suit, being as it is a part of the EU, and despite resistance from a few benighted MPs.
Here in the Isle of Man, we are, of course, not a part of the EU – so there’s no obligation for our government to follow suit; and for the time being it may not be a big deal.
Neonicotinoids at least are not known to be heavily used by our local farming community – though there’s no hard data on this, and it’s even harder to know what’s happening in private and market gardens.
But that could easily change, especially when growers are under financial pressure.
At Isle of Man Friends of the Earth, we’d welcome a ban on such pesticides where they threaten the island’s pollinator population, and thereby our already precarious food security.
We think that as well as protecting our biodiversity, we would be wise to work towards a situation where a decent proportion of the island’s food needs can be grown locally.
What do you think? Would you support a campaign for a ban?
Thanks, as ever, for reading this. Let us know if you have views – or better yet, come along to one of our monthly meetings to see how you can get involved.
It’s a measly £7.50 for annual membership, and our next gathering is at 7.30pm on Wednesday, August 14, at the Green Centre, near to Iceland supermarket in Douglas.
We’d love to see you!