(OTTAWA, ON., October 30, 2014) – Environmental organizations are calling on Health Canada to stop approving systemic pesticides that are toxic to bees and threaten to interfere with ecosystem functioning. The most widely used group of systemic pesticides, neonicotinoids, have come under increased scrutiny as a contributing factor in large-scale bee die-offs and other harmful effects.
More than a million people ask Lowe’s to stop selling bee-killing pesticides For Immediate Release: October 29, 2014 WASHINGTON, D.C.—This week, more than 30,000 people across the U.S. and Canada will swarm Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW) stores to ask the retailer to not be a “little shop of horrors” for bees and take bee-killing pesticides off its
In a move for transparency, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has made public her mandate letters to the ministers of her cabinet. In this blog post, we are cherry picking points from her letters related to pollinator health. Among her opening statements she says, “The people of Ontario have entrusted their government to be a force for good,” and
The race to Paris and a binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is off to a stellar start – last week 400,000 people joined the People’s Climate March in New York, and hundreds of thousands more in 156 countries took to the streets, joining the largest and most powerful climate demonstration in global history. Friends
Last week, I applauded Ontario’s Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal for his decision to restrict the use of neoniotinoids on farmers’ fields. To be clear, I would prefer an outright ban, but this is an important and pragmatic step to substantially reduce use of these bee-killing pesticides and shows leadership on the North American stage. According
If Ontario’s newly minted Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Glen Murray, needed a road map for priority action, it was delivered with pizzaz yesterday by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, Gord Miller. The Commissioner is required under the Environmental Bill of Rights to prepare an independent annual report on Ontario’s progress on reducing greenhouse
Congratulations to Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal – he’s fast out of the gate on the Government’s election promise to restrict use of neonicotinoids. Friends of the Earth is pleased to see Ontario move on neonics. The Minister is planning a licensing system to be in place by Fall 2014 that limits the blanket use of
On March 17, 2014, Friends of the Earth Canada sent letters to the four biggest garden centre retailers in Canada, asking them to: Commit to not sell nursery bedding plants and vegetable plants pre-treated with neonicotinoids Institute a corporate policy that bans use of neonics on and in their facilities and throughout their supply chain,
Friends of the Earth Bee Cause finds overwhelming voter support for action to save bees in closely fought by-election between NDP and PC front-runners in the Niagara Falls Riding (Ottawa, ON, Feb. 6, 2014) A poll commissioned by Friends of the Earth Canada (FOE) to research voter expectations related to protecting honey bees in Canada’s
“After the 2012 bee deaths, PMRA instituted measures that have been ineffective given a comparable scale of bee deaths in 2013. Friends of the Earth views the measures proposed in this Notice of Intent to be similarly inadequate to the scale and gravity of the danger posed by neonicotinoids to managed and wild bees.” Friends
