WASHINGTON, D.C. — Businesses and advocates are calling on the IRS to go one day without coffee -- which benefits from pollination -- to create urgency about a future without pollinators. The EPA’s April 14 deadline for comment for its risk assessment on the neonicotinoid imidacloprid -- a leading driver of bee and pollinator deaths -- coincides with the IRS’ busiest tax week of the year. The American Sustainable Business Council, Green America Business Network,…
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A coalition of food safety, consumer, and environmental groups will deliver 140,393* petition signatures urging the USDA to stop silencing its own scientists and censoring their research findings on bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. Research about these pesticides, which are a key factor in global bee declines, has been demonstrably suppressed when the research isn’t aligned with the pesticide industry. Americans across the country are urging Catherine Woteki, Under Secretary for the…
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As scrutiny of censorship of federal scientists has grown -- including a feature in Sunday’s The Washington Post Magazine -- a coalition of more than 50 sustainable agriculture, environmental, beekeeper, and public interest organizations is once again pressing the agency for overdue reforms. The coalition sent a follow-up letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture today expressing growing concerns over the alleged suppression, harassment, and censorship of agency scientists, particularly…
BOSTON, MASS. – The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources’ release last Thursday of a proposed state Pollinator Protection Plan has outraged beekeeping leaders across the state who say the state plan promotes the interests of pesticide companies while ignoring recommendations put forward by beekeeping industry experts who are trying to reverse a decline in pollinators needed for food production.
MDAR is holding a meeting today, March 7 from 2-4 p.m. EST regarding the Massachusetts…
WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week Friends of the Earth and allies delivered letters and pledges by 33,013 Americans vowing to take their business elsewhere until Ace Hardware and True Value follow other industry leaders and make public commitments to stop selling bee-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides. Thousands of customers are signing petitions, making calls and showing up in person at these retailers urging the stores to stop selling bee-killing pesticides and plants treated with the pesticides.
Last…
Friends of the Earth calls for agency to suspend bee-toxic pesticides
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its preliminary pollinator risk assessment for the pesticide imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide used widely on 140 crops, which has been implicated as a key contributor to bee declines. The risk assessment, conducted with California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation, indicates that imidacloprid poses risks to honey bees.
This is the first of four preliminary pollinator risk…
Our new report and scorecard graded 20 of the largest food retailers in the United States on their policies and practices regarding pollinator protection, organic offerings and pesticide reduction.
Coalition presses for all retailers to make commitment to protect bees
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Home Depot (NYSE: HD), the world’s largest home-improvement chain, has announced that it has removed neonicotinoid pesticides, a leading driver of global bee declines, from 80 percent of its flowering plants and that it will complete its phase-out in plants by 2018. This announcement follows an ongoing campaign and letter by Friends of the Earth and allies urging Home…
More than 400,000 people urge garden retailers to stop selling bee-killing pesticides
WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than 5,000 people in 10 cities across the U.S. will swarm Ace Hardware and True Value Hardware stores this week to urge retailers to make firm, time-bound commitments to take bee-killing pesticides off store shelves as part of a national week of action. Groups will deliver more than 400,000 petition signatures to Ace and True Value’s corporate headquarters…
Media advisory for November 4, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Local gardeners, beekeepers, environmentalists and food safety advocates will swarm Ace and True Value stores on Wednesday, November 4 to deliver letters asking the home improvement retailers to remove bee-killing pesticides from store shelves. They join more than 5,000 people that will deliver letters to the retailers in more than 10 cities across the U.S. as part of a national week of action. A coalition led by…