White House makes bid to save honeybees but ignores toxic pesticides

Plan makes millions of acres of federal land more bee-friendly but does not ban the use of neonicotinoids which research shows are closely linked to bee life loss

The White House has announced an ambitious plan to “promote the health of honeybees and other pollinators” in the United States in a bid to help reverse a worrying trend that has seen the honeybee population fall by half over the last seven decades.

It includes making millions of acres of federal land more bee-friendly, an explicit ambition to increase the population of the monarch butterfly, and the provision of millions of dollars to be spent on research.

But the plan announced on Tuesday falls short in one capacity that has environmental groups up in arms. It does not ban the use of any form of toxic pesticides, despite a large body of scientific research showing many of them – specifically neonicotinoids, or “neonics” – to be closely linked to widespread bee life loss.

White House makes bid to save honeybees but ignores toxic pesticides

-The Guardian 5/19/2015