Monthly Archives: November 2022

The Importance of Pollinators

Buglife says “One out of every three mouthfuls of our food depends on pollinators. It is almost impossible to over-emphasise the importance of the service pollinators perform for us.

Many plants rely on insects to pollinate their flowers and so complete their reproductive cycle – most plants cannot set seed without being pollinated (receiving the pollen, usually from another flower). Without bees, hoverflies and other insects visiting flowers, there would be no strawberries, apples, avocados, chocolate, cherries, olives, blueberries, carrots, grapes, pumpkins, pears, plums or peanuts…. And very few flowers in our gardens and countryside.

It is estimated that 84% of EU crops (valued at £12.6 billion) and 80% of wildflowers rely on insect pollination…”

https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/featured-bugs/pollinators/

https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/featured-bugs/pollinators/

Bumblebee Conservation Trust – statement on pesticides

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has published a new evidence-based position statement on the impacts that pesticides can have on bumblebees. We have set out five key recommendations to help policy makers, local authorities, businesses and individuals reduce the negative impacts that pesticides can have on bumblebees and other non-target animals. In most situations this means not using pesticides at all.

A summary of the statement is included below…

https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/new-pesticide-position-statement/?

Sixty years after the book that launched environmental movement there is still Government’s inaction on pesticides.

The national charity Buglife says – “The UK Government’s “dither and delay” approach to pesticide policy continues to put the health of our natural world at serious risk, sixty years after author Rachel Carson first sounded the alarm about the hidden harms of these toxic chemicals in her book “Silent Spring”.

On the 60th anniversary of the ground-breaking exposé, experts in The Pesticide Collaboration are calling out the UK Government for failing to adequately protect human health and the environment from pesticides. Since official records began in 1990, the UK has covered over 700 million hectares in pesticides – enough to douse every inch of the UK 14 times over. Meanwhile, pesticides linked to cancer are still routinely used in parks and playgrounds by local councils, up and down the country… “

https://www.buglife.org.uk/news/sixty-years-later-book-that-launched-environmental-movement-exposes-governments-inaction-on-pesticides/