The following letter was sent to the Ministry of Environment and copied to Coast Reporter.
Dear Minister:
For several years I have been reading about neonicotinoids and the devastation that pesticides bring to bees. I have been hearing about Colony Collapse Disorder, a convenient euphemism for the annihilation of bees. Scientists have been warning about pesticides and specifically these disgusting, neuro-active chemicals adding to the already enormous list of lethal garbage that keeps getting added to our environment.
How much longer can this experiment be dragged out? Until we can say definitively that yes it hurts bees, because we don't have anymore, we wiped them all out trying to decide if there was any detrimental effect. Why do we need these chemicals in the first place?
If my memory serves me right I believe that Italy spearheaded a ban almost three years ago and now most of the rest of Europe has done the same.
What are we waiting for? The only people who benefit from keeping these abominable substances are big agro-business and how much does agro-business care about the average person - about as much as there care about stepping on a fly. Money doesn't talk...it swears.
Please do something to put an end to neonicotinoids, so that bees have a chance to survive. Maybe the rest of the constant bombardment of pesticides should be scrutinized as well.
Jack Ploesser
Roberts Creek
