Tell EPA to Protect Our Honey Bees!

12 Sep, 2012

via Center for Food Safety

Bee hive. Image by: Emma Jane Hogbin

Despite over one mil­lion sup­port­ers urg­ing the agency to act swiftly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has refused to take emer­gency action on a crit­i­cal peti­tion filed last March by more than 25 affected bee­keep­ers along with the Center for Food Safety, Beyond Pesticides and the Pesticide Action Network North America. The peti­tion called for sus­pend­ing the use of cloth­i­an­i­din, a toxic pes­ti­cide shown to adversely impact the sur­vival and health of honey bees, and cause harm­ful effects to numer­ous other inver­te­brate species. While fail­ing to issue an imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion, EPA opened a pub­lic com­ment docket, which ends September 25th, to allow any mem­ber of the pub­lic to com­ment on the legal peti­tion.

On aver­age, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that bee­keep­ers have been los­ing over 30% of their honey bee colonies annu­ally since 2006—but some are los­ing much more, and their liveli­hoods are threat­ened. At the same time, hun­dreds of bee­keep­ers each year suf­fer major bee kills caused by dust con­t­a­m­i­nated with cloth­i­an­i­din and its close chem­i­cal cousin, thi­amethoxam. This can­not go on. Honey bees are an indi­ca­tor species, and also essen­tial for our food sys­tem: one-third of our agri­cul­tural sup­ply is pol­li­nated by honey bees – with­out pol­li­na­tors, many of our most widely-consumed crops can­not be grown.

Germany, Italy, France and other coun­tries have sus­pended major uses of these pes­ti­cides in the last few years. But EPA has con­tin­ued to ignore many well-researched, scientifically-sound stud­ies and reports illus­trat­ing the alarm­ingly adverse effects that these new sys­temic pes­ti­cides are causing.

It is imper­a­tive that EPA acts swiftly to sus­pend cloth­i­an­i­din and other pollinator-toxic pes­ti­cides until it can sci­en­tif­i­cally demon­strate they are safe.

Please take a moment to urge EPA to grant the bee­keeper and NGO peti­tion. Honey bees and other pol­li­na­tors need our help—speak up and insist that EPA sus­pend the use of this toxic pes­ti­cide. The more pub­lic com­ments the EPA receives in favor of this peti­tion, the bet­ter our chances for sav­ing these crit­i­cal species and pro­tect­ing our food supply.

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