Save the bees says Liverpool MEP (Garston and Halewood Liberal Democrats)

Garston and Halewood Liberal Democrats <info@garstonld.org.uk>

Save the bees says Liverpool MEP

July 21, 2009 12:00 AM

Chris Davies MEP A North West Euro-MP has used his first question of the new term at the European Parliament to highlight the plight of British bees.

In the last two years bee numbers have declined by 15-30% and the Government recently announced funding of around £2 million this year to study the decline.

Liberal Democrat Chris Davies MEP wants the European Commission to consider banning a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids that are used to protect plants from insects. Neonicotinoid use has been linked to bees dying which has led to its use being severely restricted in both France and Germany.

Davies said, "The Commission needs to consider a ban on these chemicals before the bee decline starts showing up in food shortages. Better to take action now as a precaution than risk the destruction of bee colonies because we left it too late.

"Protecting the environment isn't just about the big visible changes like the melting ice in Greenland or the pollution in our atmosphere, it's also about protecting the tiny creatures who keep our plants growing and our world running. Insects may be unloved by some people but they are indispensible to our way of life."

Bees are believed to contribute £120 million per year in direct economic benefits to Britain by pollinating commercial crops. Without bees, many food crops would die out completely as plants such as watermelons, brazil nuts and vanilla cannot reproduce without the help of bees. About a third of the food we eat comes from plants pollinated partly or exclusively by bees.

In recent years scientists have been trying to discover the reasons why bees have been disappearing in large numbers. Many studies currently focus on the varroa mite, a parasite of bees that weakens colonies by feeding on the bees themselves. Neonicotinoids are less studied despite evidence from Germany and France in particular that they can cause bee colony numbers to collapse.