BEES

Bees and other pollinating insects play an essential role in ecosystems. A third of all our food depends on their pollination. A world without pollinators would be devastating for food production.

This is no marginal species loss. Honey bees – wild and domestic – perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Grains are primarily pollinated by the wind, but the best and healthiest food – fruits, nuts, and vegetables – are pollinated by bees. Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops, which supply about 90 percent of the world's nutrition, are pollinated by bees. Moreover, the economic value of bees’ pollination work has been estimated around  265 billion € annually, worldwide. So, also from a purely economic point of view, it pays to protect the bees.

Leading causes

Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of factors: pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, global heating, and so forth. The causes of collapse merge and synergise, but we know that humanity is the perpetrator, and that the two most prominent causes appear to be pesticides and habitat loss.

 Solutions to save bees

 Common sense actions could restore and protect the world's bees.

- Ban the seven most dangerous pesticides

- Protect pollinator health by preserving wild habitat, and

- Restore ecological agriculture

Ecological Farming is the over-arching new policy trend that will stabilize human food production, preserve wild habitats, and protect the bees. The nation of Bhutan has led the world in adopting a 100% organic farming policy. By restoring bee populations and healthier bees, ecological agriculture improves pollination, which in turn improves crop yields.

Let's see an info graphic to understand it a bit more: