Please find below our CEO’s reaction to the announcement yesterday, Monday 29th April 2013, that the EU will go ahead with a two-year ban on the use of three neonicotinoids on crops attractive bees.

Survival Arts are helping to support the Short-haired Bumblebee Reintroduction Project (click here for information about that) by getting people to create works of art based on this bee species. Entries to the competition will be considered for use on products being sold by Survival Arts, the proceeds of which will go toward the Reintroduction Project. The winner will also receive £300.  There's more information on how to enter on the Survival Arts website  at http://www.survival-arts.org/bee-art-competition/

Position statement, April 2013

On Friday 5 April 2013, the House of Common’s Environmental Audit Committee released its report “Pollinators and Pesticides”. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT) has advocated for the application of the precautionary principle and now feels with the body of evidence available that the three criteria needed for its application have been met. The BBCT thereby calls for a temporary moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on crops of insect-pollinated plants and for domestic use (e.g. in gardens). However, the BBCT urges very strongly that further testing in the field is needed and that the agrochemical companies should make public the results of their risk assessment trials to inform further research.  In calling for a precautionary moratorium, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust continues to urge governments in the UK and those in Europe to:

March 2013

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust continues to follow the debate about neonicotinoids and remains exceedingly concerned about their effect on pollinators, including bumblebees, and the environment.  It continues to call for the use of the precautionary principle as it is defined in Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

In calling for the precautionary principle to be invoked, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust continues to urge governments in the UK and those in Europe to: