TODAY’S ECO WAKE-UP CALL:
The indigenous wild honeybee population in the U.S. has declined by about 90% in the past 50 years. Managed honeybee colonies have dropped by about 2/3 in the same period.
In this show America The Green discusses this vital issue that should be on top of every ones mind. What makes this so significant is the fact that honeybees and their pollination of fruits, nuts and vegetable plants are vital to our food supply chain. One third of human nutrition is due to bee pollination. This includes the majority of fruits, many vegetables and their seed crops and much of the alfalfa and clover that is fed to livestock. In other words, without them, a majority of our food chain will be gone.
The reasons why: insecticides sprayed on crops during the critical pollination period kills the very bees needed to pollinate. Widespread aerial spraying leaves no island of safety where wild insect pollinators can reproduce or repopulate. Shrinking habitat reduces areas of feeding and living space for bees.
The human race has forgotten that we are but one species in a vastly interconnected chain of life. Nature is symbiotic, we all depend on the delicate balance that has been refined through million of years of evolution. It’s called mutual dependence.
In 2000 Dr’s. Roger Morse and Nicholas Calderone of
Cornell University quantified the effects of just one pollinator, the honeybee, on only U.S. food crops, the figure exceeds $14.6 billion in food crop value.
Our closing question: What one significant change do we as a species need to shift towards to create permanent, positive change in our world?
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A special thanks to Kevin Hays for his song “What Survives” off the Kevin Hays Trio CD. PLEASE, if like this music, check him out at KevinHays.com
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