The UN has come out with a report summarizing about 3,000 scientific papers and has concluded that 40 percent of invertebrate pollinator species—such as bees and butterflies, not birds and bats—are facing extinction. Some have translated this to mean that one in three bites of food that we eat is at risk. Others have said that almost 90 percent of flowering plants needing pollination across the world are on shaky ground and thus potentially endangering the wildlife that depend on them for food. Furthermore, 16 percent of vertebrate pollinators, including a number of species of bats and birds, are also threatened with extinction.
To quote a UN official, "Their decline is primarily due to changes in land use, intensive agricultural practices, and pesticide use, alien invasive species, diseases and pests, and climate change."
1 comment:
This issue is incredibly important for variety reasons as your article stated. For the most part only wealthy countries, the majority the world relies on Agriculture particularly pollinated vegetation. A matter fact this is such a serious issue that the White House enacted the inter-agency task force chaired by the director of the EPA and I believe the director of agriculture to coordinate 15 other federal agencies to address this issue. 0n June 20, 2014, President Barack Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum calling on heads of executive departments and agencies to “expand Federal efforts and take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels” (The White House, 2014). Importantly, the Memorandum directs federal agencies to address threats to all pollinators such as honey bees, native bees, birds, bats, butterflies and moths.
The level of Presidential action is rarely taken and when it is it is typically taken as a result of a threat to humanity or society as a result of deadly pathogens. Two current cases in point are of the Ebola crisi and the current North Korean crisis
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