June 20-24 is Pollinator Week, during which we recognize—and take action to protect—this important ecosystem link. Pollinators––bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and other organisms––make a critical contribution to plant health, crop productivity, and the preservation of natural resources, but their existence is threatened by their pesticide-contaminated habitat. Pesticides have consistently been implicated as a key contributor to dramatic pollinator declines. Of the 100 crop varieties that provide 90% of the world's food, 71 are pollinated by bees. Honey bees alone pollinate 95 kinds of fruits, nuts and vegetables, such as apples, avocados, almonds, and cranberries.
>>Take action to protect pollinators.
Providing protection for pollinators also protects the ecosystem in which they live. That protection requires eliminating harm as well as providing safe habitats where they can live and reproduce.
Provide organic habitat on your own property and encourage your town to go organic. Since 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. In partnership with major retailers like Natural Grocers and Stonyfield Organic, the Beyond Pesticides' Parks for a Sustainable Future program provides in-depth training and demonstration sites to assist community land managers in transitioning public green spaces to organic landscape management, while aiming to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to eventually transition all public areas in a locality to these sustainable and safe practices. Through this program, Beyond Pesticides is now assisting local leaders and municipal landscapers to convert parks and recreational areas across the country to exclusively organic practices, which eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.
Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to support the Saving America's Pollinators Act. By introducing this critical piece of legislation, U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) continues the fight against to protect pollinators in the face of the vested economic interests of chemical companies, chemical service industry, and an unresponsive U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And as a result of pollinator heroes like yourself, they've already enlisted 73 cosponsors to join the effort. The bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate, so Senate sponsors are needed.
Saving America's Pollinators Act (H.R.4079) will not only cancel specific bee-toxic pesticides, it will reshape the EPA process for permitting pesticides to be used in our communities and homes in the first place. Current law is filled with language that allows chemical lobbyists to unduly influence EPA decisions and loopholes that favor pesticide dependency instead of incentivizing alternatives like organic practices and products.
Under SAPA, pesticides that pose risks to pollinators will undergo a higher level of review by a board of unbiased pollinator experts. If these experts, who will not have conflicts of interest with the chemical industry, determine a pesticide is too toxic, then it will be removed or never allowed on the market in the first place.
SAPA creates a sustainable model for pollinator protection, including an annual, ongoing review on the health of pollinator populations. In the face of an EPA captured by chemical company corruption, SAPA will become an important tool to prevent ongoing chemical crimes against pollinators and the environment.
Tell Kroger to adopt a pollinator protection policy that adequately addresses toxic pesticide use. Kroger's competitors are taking action on pollinator health. Walmart announced an industry-leading policy to protect pollinators from pesticides. In 2020, Giant Eagle announced a commitment to eliminate pollinator-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides from its produce supply chain. Kroger should take similar steps to protect pollinators. (Please note: The Kroger action pops up after you take the action on Congress and Biden/EPA.)
Independent laboratory testing of items that children and families typically eat, including cereal, apples, applesauce, spinach, and pinto beans, finds that Kroger's private-label foods contain toxic pesticides—glyphosate, organophosphates, and neonicotinoids. These pesticides are linked to adverse human health impacts ranging from increased risk of cancer and infertility to harm to children's developing brains and endocrine disruption. They are also associated with harm to bees and other pollinators.
Tell the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and President Biden 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.
>>Take action now.