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A study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science bolsters alarm about the role that agricultural pesticides play in what scientists have dubbed the "bugpocalypse" and led authors to call for stricter regulations across the U.S.
Imports of cheap, fake honey from Asia are pushing American beekeepers to financial collapse, according to a lawsuit. Thousands of commercial beekeepers in the US have taken legal action against the country’s largest honey importers and packers for allegedly flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of counterfeit honey.
The European Union’s top court on Thursday upheld the EU’s partial ban on three insecticides linked to harming bees, preventing their use on certain crops. The European Court of Justice dismissed an appeal by Bayer (BAYGn.DE) to overturn a lower EU court's 2018 decision to uphold the ban.
Bees provide the crucial ecosystem service of pollination, but are under threat, with 37% of EU bee species with known trends exhibiting population declines. One apparent cause of these declines is pesticides. Pesticide usage is pervasive, with 4.1 billion kilograms of active ingredient applied globally in 2017, nearly double the amount used in 1990.
Wildlife and humans can and should co-exist in sustainable, healthy communities. Community leaders such as mayors, city councilors, county commissioners, and municipal staff across the country are making the connection between healthy, sustainable human communities and wildlife conservation by issuing wildlife-friendly proclamations that promote resident engagement around wildlife conservation and habitat restoration.
As humans have industrialised farming to feed a growing global population, pollinators – animals vital for plant reproduction – have seen their food supply decline. In the UK, intensive agriculture has eroded biological diversity in large portions of the countryside, with vast swathes of cereal crops and ryegrass pastures now replacing flower-rich habitats.
For years, Toni Genberg assumed a healthy garden was a healthy habitat. That’s how she approached the landscaping around her home in northern Virginia. On trips to the local gardening center, she would privilege aesthetics, buying whatever looked pretty, “which was typically ornamental or invasive plants,” she says. Then, in 2014, Genberg attended a talk by Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware. “I learned I was actually starving our wildlife,” she says.
One day last fall, deep in the middle of a devastating drought, I was walking the dog when a van bearing the logo of a mosquito-control company blew past me and parked in front of a neighbor’s house. The whole vehicle stank of chemicals, even going 40 miles an hour.
As explained by the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies, “neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides in the world.” If you were to visit a conventional farm, you’d likely see evidence of their use in the form of brightly colored red corn seeds and blue soybean seeds, which are color-coded to denote treatment with neonicotinoids.
Thanks to a record wet spring, his hundreds of hives, scattered across the central Arizona desert, produced a bounty of honey. Arp would have plenty to sell in stores, but more importantly, the bumper harvest would strengthen his bees for their biggest task of the coming year.
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