Frankfurt: German agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer was presented yesterday with a petition of more than one million signatures urging it to stop manufacturing pesticides that are blamed for the decline in the world’s bee populations.
“Bee killing is not really something that a company that is looking toward the future should do,” Anne Isakowitsch, an activist for Sum of Us, an environmentalist campaign group, said.
Bees help pollinate around 80 percent of all species of flowering plants. And so without them, many fruits and vegetables would be unable to reproduce, which would have catastrophic consequences for the food chain.
Hence Berlin-based Isakowitsch travelled to Bayer’s annual shareholder meeting in Cologne on Friday to present the maker of agricultural chemicals with a petition of 1.4 million signatures.
The campaigners are calling on the group -- best known for its Aspirin painkiller -- to stop selling two substances, clothianidin and imidacloprid, that are contained in the pesticides believed to be responsible for killing bees.
The European Union has already placed a moratorium on sales of the chemicals, which are classed as neonicotinoids, since the end of 2013.
Also affected are thiamethoxam made by Swiss giant Syngenta and fipronil by another German rival, BASF.
AFP
Frankfurt: German agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer was presented yesterday with a petition of more than one million signatures urging it to stop manufacturing pesticides that are blamed for the decline in the world’s bee populations.
“Bee killing is not really something that a company that is looking toward the future should do,” Anne Isakowitsch, an activist for Sum of Us, an environmentalist campaign group, said.
Bees help pollinate around 80 percent of all species of flowering plants. And so without them, many fruits and vegetables would be unable to reproduce, which would have catastrophic consequences for the food chain.
Hence Berlin-based Isakowitsch travelled to Bayer’s annual shareholder meeting in Cologne on Friday to present the maker of agricultural chemicals with a petition of 1.4 million signatures.
The campaigners are calling on the group -- best known for its Aspirin painkiller -- to stop selling two substances, clothianidin and imidacloprid, that are contained in the pesticides believed to be responsible for killing bees.
The European Union has already placed a moratorium on sales of the chemicals, which are classed as neonicotinoids, since the end of 2013.
Also affected are thiamethoxam made by Swiss giant Syngenta and fipronil by another German rival, BASF.
AFP
