A World without Bees

In the UK there has been an analysis of what are the biggest threats to its welfare and safety. On the list are issues such as cyber-wars, terrorism, natural disasters and military aggression, but diminishing planetary resources and biodiversity are not prominent among them - if considered at all. They should be top of the list.

With two months yet to go before 2010 is over, how many people remember that this year is the Year of Biodiversity? How many people know that there is a global conference on the subject starting shortly in Japan - or are interested? Where is the media or political focus? 

It is a sad fact that for some of us, biodiversity is a brand of washing powder. The power of the media has been demonstrated again in its coverage of the Chilean miners' rescue, through which global awareness of these events was maximised. How wonderful it would be if there was half the coverage on the impact of  human behaviour on the environment, what it is doing and how it can be re-balanced. It is just as important as, and in many ways much more interesting than, the war in Afghanistan  or anything else that is headline news for a day or a week. 

In certain parts of the world, fruit growers are having to pay men and women to pollinate their trees by hand because there are no bees there now. That is unsustainable on a global basis, and a world without bees will be a world without humans. I do not believe that will happen, but we are getting dangerously close to the wire.