Bees and other pollinators are approaching extinction – UN

WASHINGTON: Many species of wild bees, butterflies and other animals that pollinate plants are shrinking toward extinction and the world needs to do something about it before our food supply suffers, a new UN scientific report warns.

The 20 000 or so species of pollinators are key to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of crops each year – from fruit and vegetables to coffee and chocolate. Yet two out of five species of invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are on the path toward extinction, said the report.

Pollinators with backbones, such as hummingbirds and bats, are only slightly better off, with one in six species facing extinction.

“We are in a period of decline and there are going to be increasing consequences,” said report lead author Simon Potts, director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research at the University of Reading.

And it’s not just honeybees. In some aspects they’re doing better than many of their wild counterparts, like the bumblebee, despite dramatic long-term declines in the US from a mysterious disorder that has waned.

The trouble is the report can’t point to a single villain. Among the culprits: the way farming has changed so there’s not enough diversity and wild flowers for pollinators to use as food; pesticide use, including a controversial one; habitat loss to cities; disease, parasites and pathogens; and global warming.

The report is the result of more than two years of work by scientists across the globe who got together under several different UN agencies to come up with an assessment of Earth’s biodiversity, starting with the pollinators.

The report, which draws from many scientific studies but no new research, was approved by a congress of 124 nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

The report highlighted recent research that said the widely used insecticide neonicotinoid reduces wild bees’ chances for survival and reproduction, but the evidence of effects on conflicting.

In a statement, Christian Maus, global pollinator safety manager for Bayer, which makes neonicotinoids, said: “Protecting pollinators and providing a growing population with safe, abundant food will require collaboration.”

England has lost two species of wild bumblebees to extinction and the US has lost one. – ANA-AP

honeybees

is

PICTURE: AP WORK: A bumblebee gathers nectar on a wild flower in Appleton, Maine.