As regular followers of this blog will know I am keen to see more action regarding bees - it is great that Elinor Croxall, the local Green party coordinator, is now planning to put together a meeting later in the year in Stroud - interest has been very strong locally.I have also had further contact last week with a bee specialist in Australia who is offering to come at his own cost next month to trial his experiments that he believes can prevent Colony Collapse Disorder in hives.
Greens have also been pushing the petition to Government to invest in more money - go here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/
Indeed I sent out a long press release today - see here (photo of Green SW lead Euro candidate Ricky Knight with Devon beekeeper):www.glosgreenparty.org.uk/content/view/2107/2/
It was very interesting while putting the news release together to talk to various Green party members and others who keep bees - interesting and worrying - and as I said in the press release: "....we must see Government action: imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."
2 comments:
Caroline Lucas MEP writes:
May 23rd, 2008
The Honey Bee
As many as 1 in 5 bee hives have been destroyed in the last 6 months, threatening a vital part of our ecosystems. According to a quote attributed to Einstein, humankind has only four years of survival left once the last honey bee has left planet earth, so the decline in bee numbers is clearly an alarming trend - even for those that tend to underplay the significance of such events in the natural world. I drew the European Commission’s attention to the need to tackle new threats to bee health some years ago but with no success. I have also joined British campaigners in calling on the government to reverse cuts to its hive inspection programme. DEFRA have now admitted the cuts were a mistake and have upped the priority given to inspections - hopefully not too late to make a difference. Today I have written again to the European Commission arguing that there is an urgent need for a pan-European response to the crisis facing the honey bee. I hope they agree!
New Defra consultation:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/bee-health/index.htm
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