21
Jun
The Week of June 21 Is Pollinator Week—A Time to Take Personal and Community Action
(Beyond Pesticides, June 21, 2021) Pollinator Week reminds us that change is critical to the survival of the planet and that we can take action, both in our households and communities and in the state and federal policy arena.
Here’s how YOU can take action…
- Create an organic habitat on your own property or a space in the community—such as the library grounds, medians, and rights-of-way. Given that plant starts in many garden centers across the country are grown from seeds coated with bee-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides, or drenched with them, Beyond Pesticides has compiled a comprehensive directory of companies and organizations that sell organic seeds and plants to the general public. Included in this directory are seeds for vegetables, flowers, and herbs, as well as living plants and seedlings. [We are always updating the directory, so send us names of companies that should be added and we will.]
- Go organic in the management of all your town’s public spaces—parks, playing fields, school grounds, and open space. Check out the information on talking with your neighbors, local organizations, and elected officials about advancing our model local policy. Then you can see what other communities are doing across the country. Also, see the cost comparison between organic and chemical-intensive land management.
- Tell President Biden and your governor to ban all pesticides and treated seeds that harm pollinators—from neonicotinoids, fipronil, synthetic pyrethroids, organophosphate insecticides to the herbicide glyphosate—and assist land managers, from farmers to landscapers, to transition to organic practices that prohibit the use of these deadly chemicals. Tell the Biden administration to reestablish a national strategy to work across agencies to eliminate our reliance on toxic pesticides and assist in the transition to organic land management—in the interest of protecting ecosystems against the ongoing dramatic destruction of biodiversity and the insect apocalypse. Tell your governor to do the same at the state level.
Letter to President Biden
During this Pollinator Week, it time to act to get serious about protecting pollinators and in so doing eliminate toxic pesticides that are contributing to dramatic declines in biodiversity. As The New York Times wrote in November 2018, “The Insect Apocalypse is Here.” Scientists and researchers have identified three broad contributors to the crisis: pesticide use, habitat destruction, and climate change. With your leadership, we can shift to alternative products and practices, improve biodiversity, and begin to repair the damage done by chemical-intensive land management practices.
To ensure a serious and meaningful effort to address the threat to pollinators, we need to remove from the market pesticides and treated seeds that have been shown, through independent peer-reviewed scientific review, to harm pollinators. This requires comprehensive action against neonicotinoids and related compounds, fipronil, synthetic pyrethroids, organophosphate insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate. At the same time, it is critical that you bring the resources of government to assist land managers, from farmers to landscapers, to transition to organic practices that prohibit the use of these and other deadly chemicals.
We urge you to reestablish a national strategy to work cross-agency to eliminate our reliance on toxic pesticides that harm pollinators and assist in the transition to organic land management in the interest of protecting ecosystems and dramatic destruction of biodiversity, identified by researchers as the insect apocalypse.
In a systematic review of insect declines by researchers Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, PhD and Kris A.G. Wyckhuys, PhD, pesticide use was identified as a critical component in addressing the crisis at large. “A rethinking of current agricultural practices, in particular a serious reduction in pesticide usage and its substitution with more sustainable, ecologically-based practices, is urgently needed to slow or reverse current trends, allow the recovery of declining insect populations and safeguard the vital ecosystem services they provide,” they write.
Without your leadership to elevate the response to the threat to pollinators, our future is threatened. As renowned UK ecologist and coauthor of the study “More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas,” David Goulson, PhD, has said, “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.”
I look forward to learning that you are moving forward with this recommendation to save our future.
Thank you.
Letter to Your Governor
During this Pollinator Week, it time to get serious about protecting pollinators and in so doing eliminate toxic pesticides that are contributing to dramatic declines in biodiversity. As The New York Times wrote in November 2018, “The Insect Apocalypse is Here.” Scientists and researchers have identified three broad contributors to the crisis: pesticide use, habitat destruction, and climate change. With your leadership, we can shift to alternative products and practices, improve biodiversity, and begin to repair the damage done by chemical-intensive land management practices.
To ensure a serious and meaningful effort to address the threat to pollinators, we need to remove from the market pesticides and treated seeds that have been shown, through independent peer-reviewed scientific review, to harm pollinators. This requires comprehensive action against neonicotinoids and related compounds, fipronil, synthetic pyrethroids, organophosphate insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate. At the same time, it is critical that you bring the resources of government to assist land managers, from farmers to landscapers, to transition to organic practices that prohibit the use of these and other deadly chemicals.
We urge you to establish a state strategy to work across agencies to eliminate our reliance on toxic pesticides that harm pollinators and assist in the transition to organic land management in the interest of protecting ecosystems and dramatic destruction of biodiversity, identified by researchers as the insect apocalypse.
In a systematic review of insect declines by researchers Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, PhD and Kris A.G. Wyckhuys, PhD, pesticide use was identified as a critical component in addressing the crisis at large. “A rethinking of current agricultural practices, in particular a serious reduction in pesticide usage and its substitution with more sustainable, ecologically-based practices, is urgently needed to slow or reverse current trends, allow the recovery of declining insect populations and safeguard the vital ecosystem services they provide,” they write.
Without your leadership to elevate the response to threat to pollinators, our future is threatened. As renowned UK ecologist and coauthor of the study “More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas,” David Goulson, PhD, has said, “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.”
I look forward to learning that you are moving forward with this recommendation to save our future.
Thank you.
