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Équiterre and the David Suzuki Foundation, in collaboration with New York artist Zina Saunders, would like to present Life Without Bees. This short film shows the importance of bees in food production and the negative impact of neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics) on the health of these important pollinators. It also urges you to act by signing the call for action It’s time to ban bee-killing pesticides!
Équiterre would also like to set a challenge! Help us reach our goal of 35,000 signatures by the end of May! The signatures will then be sent to the Environment Department. Please share the Life Without Bees video and encourage your friends and family to the sign the call for action!
Did you know that one in three mouthfuls of food we eat depends on the work of pollinators like bees? That almost all the foods rich in vitamins and minerals that keep us alive depend on these little insects?
Neonics, in use for just under a decade, are the most widely used class of insecticide in the world, accounting for 40% of the market. In Quebec, almost all corn seed and 30% of soybean seed is treated with neonics. That’s more than half a million hectares of farmland each year. They’re also found in certain lawn pesticides.
Bees may not be the only victims. The European Food Safety Authority has concluded that neonics may also affect the development of the human nervous system. Yet these pesticides end up in rivers and wells sampled by Quebec’s environment department.
Ontario is currently proposing a regulation to reduce the amount of land planted with corn and soybean seeds treated with neonics 80% by 2017. Quebec should do the same.
This is a major concern! So please act to ban the use of these harmful pesticides.
Act now and sign the call for action. It’s time to ban bee-killing pesticides!
Click here to watch the video.
Find out more about Zina Saunders, the creator of the animation at www.zinasaunders.com
