Empowerment Works To Bee or Not To BEE Press Conference CALL FOR PANELISTS!
Just a week or two ago I heard about something on NPR about the bee population rapidly declining. Recently, I have become aware of more details about this problem and that the population is down 70 percent around the US.
I have been working with Melanie St James of Empowerment Works (Venice, CA) to put together a press conference in LA on April 17th (see EW Press Release) to highlight the situation. The theme is not just about the bees, but about promoting more sustainable farming approaches that minimize the use of toxic chemicals which might adversely impact ecosystems.
We are looking for Panelists to participate in the Conference on April 17th. The event will include a discussion of possible issues causing this problem. Indeed this may be yet another sign that our agricultural system is broken and is rapidly degrading the ecological commons. Increasing scientific evidence indicates that the Modern Way of Life driven by conspicuous consumerism is increasingly driving the planet’s ecosystems to the brink of failure.
We not only want to discuss the possible causes of this potentially devastating problem, but also explore this as another cause for promote a fundamental alignment in our food production system. The theme for the event will be developing poly-culture food production systems that better balance human needs with nature. This includes many similar but distinct innovative approaches: permaculture, integrate farming, agro-ecology, living machines, bio-intensive agriculture, etc.
What’s Going On?
Fact is this has been a sudden sucker punch and the bees have been so quickly disappearing that there has been little time to understand what is really going on. First it seemed that this was primarily a US problem hitting about 30 states hardest (overview can be found here at the Celsias Website). More recent reports tell of similar bee die-offs in Europe. In isolated cases in Germany, some beekeepers have seen declines as high as 80 percent of their colonies this year, according to Der Spiegel, a German magazine. These regions of course have one key thing in common; they have the most heavily industrialized agricultural economies in the world.
Pollination is Vital to Sustaining Ecosystems
In an article by the Pittsburg Times Review, it’s estimated that the honey bee industry contributes 15 billion dollars to the agricultural sector of the American economy. However ecologists have noted the bees are vital but vulnerable link long taken for granted by the American agricultural system and the larger economy. Pollination provides life sustaining services not just to agriculture, but to ensure overall ecosystem vitality and health. The long term, overall impact on the ecosystems might be much worse than any the short term economic losses that put farmers out of business. Of course the potential ramifications of that might be a significant loss in food supply.
Are GMOs Killing the Bees?
John McDonald of the San Francisco Chronicle reports in his article “Could genetically modified crops be killing bees?,” that certain GMOs may be causing the problem. Others though are quick to deny this. The political reasons for denying this link are obvious. GMO corps like Monsanto have been pumping money into the political system for years now with predictable results.
Many Different Factors could be Causing Bee Hive Declines
As we are increasing our impact on the planet more and more of the problems with the resulting ecological degradation have no clear single answer. A report in the Beekeeper’s Association Newsletter; Feb 2007 states it well:
A wide array of factors is implicated which could be compounding each other; however, scientists still are hoping to isolate the main underlying cause of this calamity. Certain ailments such as AFB, varroa mites, tracheal mites and small hive beetles appear to be ruled out; however, unknown diseases associated with them will still be studied. Honey bees in affected colonies are showing symptoms to varying degrees of other ailments affecting different parts of a bee’s anatomy and physiology. Those include stonebrood, chalkbrood and other fungi, viruses, protozoans (nosema, amoeba, and flagellates) yeasts and bacteria. Many of these ailments are most likely stress related and associated with stress on a bee’s immune system; possibly from poor nutrition, compounded/multiple minor ailments; pesticide exposure and maybe even something similar to “shipping fever” in cattle.
Pesticide Use a Problem?
Chronic pesticide exposure at low levels in the environment and even accumulation of residues in wax and comb for chemicals has been used to control mites and small hive beetles and this may be having an impact. Imidacloprid is used on many plants which bees actively visit for nectar and pollen. This may be impacting bees immune systems so that they are no able to respond to mites and other naturally occurring pests.
Systemic Change Needed
The introduction of modern crop practices have made ecosystems vulnerable. It is suspected that these practices have made organisms like the bees vulnerable to parasitic organisms which in many areas may now have the upper hand. It could have been something very subtle that made large populations of bees vulnerable. It’s hard to speculate as the experts really have no firm idea what’s going on and there are plenty of reasons for very powerful people to craftily manipulate the levers of power to obfuscate the true impact of these chemicals on the ecology as well as well human health.
In vast sections of the US millions of acres of land were converted over to corporate mono-cultures. These regions have very little diversity as compared to what was previously the case when those areas of land were intact ecosystems. It clear that industrial farming practices is a holistic impact on the reducing the productivity and viability of the natural commons and that another possible sign of this is the sudden reduction in bee populations. It may be that we are not at a stage of environment degradation when natural resilence may be finally breaking down to toxic chemicals and farming practices. The bees could be the first of many important species to suffer massive dieoffs from the loss of ecological viability that’s associated with human activities.
