Neal’s Yard Remedies’ Save the Bees campaign has garnered industry-wide support for the reduction of pesticide use. The government has responded to the petition. Now, you need to do your bit…

Neal’s Yard Remedies (NYR) launched its Save the Bees campaign in 2011. A year later, the Bee Lovely Range was launched and since then the brand has donated 3% of sales from the collection to bee conservation charities. 

Back in July of this year, NYR for the government to set national targets for reducing pesticide use, decreasing toxicity levels and supporting farmers to adopt nature-friendly approaches to pest management. With the support of over 55 British businesses and organisations, an open letter calling for the total ban of neonicotinoids was delivered to No10 Downing Street and a petition was started.

This was in reaction to the temporary reauthorisation of three pesticides called clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam as an emergency measure for the sugar beet crop. 

As of August 8th, the petition had received over 15,000 signatures which triggered a response from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. The written statement is mixed, saying that the long-delayed National Action Plan (NAP) for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides will be published later this year, but the targets set out in the action plan will be assessed. 

What does this response mean?

Anabel Kindersley, co-owner of NYR explains what this means for bees: ‘Removing targets risks watering down protections for our pollinators. The government should be incentivising the use of nature-based solutions for our farming, not making it easier to use toxic pesticides.’

‘Last week, I met with Tony Lloyd MP, the Chair of the All-Party Group for Bees and Pollinators. He agreed that we need to keep the pressure on the government to make sure the NAP is published and to guarantee that our pollinators are protected from dangerous pesticides.’

Why is this important? 

The upcoming release of the National Action Plan (NAP) for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides gives us a deadline for reaching the 100,000 signatures necessary for the petition to be debated in parliament. 

 We must ensure that politicians liaise on the movement before this is released so that we can influence the guidance and prevent a watering down of targets. To do so, we must demonstrate that people care about this issue.

Write to your MP to raise the profile of Save the Bees

You can exercise power as a constituent by writing to your MP. Luckily, Neal’s Yard Remedies has made it really easy for you to send a letter promoting the Save the Bee’s campaign, simply follow the steps below:

1. Find out who your local MP is, which you can do here.
2. Note down your local MP’s email and postal addresses, which can be found here.
3. Visit the #StandByBees .
   
4. Click “Generate an email to my MP” 
   1. This will automatically open your email browser, with the template letter already in the body of the email. 
   2. Supporters just need to fill in their MPs name and email address, plus their own name and postcode. 
   3. They can also edit and personalise the body of the email if they wish.

Sign and share the Save the Bees petition 

• Sign the petition .
•  Share the with your friends and family.
• Read more about the petition here.