Murder hornet has become the popularized name for Vespa mandarinia, but the established common name is simply Asian giant hornet — a name that describes where the insect is from and what it looks like. While in this case of this species the colloquial and standardized common name are quite different, common names aren’t always as straightforward as Asian giant hornet. They can be just as cryptic as the name murder hornet. 

“Sometimes common names are very misleading or they are not very informative,” says Adam Brunke, Chair of the Common Names Committee for the Entomological Society of Canada (ESC). “It’s a communication issue.”

However, ease of communication is exactly what a common name is for. They’re used to bridge the divide between those who study a field of biology, such as the study of insects called entomology, and those who don’t. So when a name fails to add ease, has confusing descriptors, or uses derogatory language, there’s a problem. 

These issues are what the Better Common Names Project aims to address. Led by the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and a steering committee made up of many ESC members, the Better Common Names Project involves revisiting common insect names, proposing new ones, and approving a new standard common name for both the United States and Canada. 

The first renaming for the project was for Lymantria dispar where the official common name “gypsy moth” was changed to “spongy moth” due to the term gypsy being an ethnic slur for the Romani people. The new name “spongy” refers to the insect’s distinct sponge-like egg masses. It’s a characteristic that’s unique to the insect and easy to understand. 

Male spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) // Credit: S. McCann; Source: Entomological Society of Canada

“What happens is that we don’t actually propose any names ourselves. We get proposals from the entomological community and they do some background research and provide a rationale. They explain why any existing names are appropriate or not appropriate,” Brunke says. “Normally, there’s two or three names that are already out there, or maybe the name exists in French, but not English, or vice versa. So this is a bit of a special case where we had a pest insect with a very, very dominant name.”

It’s easy to look at this project or renaming happening in any field as only a means of creating a more inclusive and equitable society. And while that’s certainly not a bad thing to consider, the main goal is to enable clear communication and understanding. 

Though we often learn and accept terms for what they are and can adapt to a pre-existing language, it doesn’t mean the language is as effective as it could be. In fact, it’s possible people may get the wrong idea of what an insect is or does if a name is too ambiguous or nondescript.

Take the case of a newly introduced tick in Canada.

“It was starting to get a lot of media attention because it is a potential disease vector.” 

A disease vector is something that carries and spreads disease, like an insect, which is definitely information that the broader community should be aware of. But the way in which this information is communicated should be done carefully. It was important that this insect be given a name that’s more than just clickbait. No one needs a new case of “murder hornets”.

“We were trying to use something neutral and something descriptive before it could, you know, sort of get out of hand or go in a direction we’d rather it not,” Brunke says, emphasizing that a common name should help someone identify an insect. This is especially important for those monitoring for a specific pest that may be harmful or damaging to the environment.

Murder hornet news headline // Source: Saanich News

Identifying, suggesting, and standardizing common names is definitely not a one-person job. After all, there are an estimated 10 quintillion insects out there. The collaborative effort of the entomological societies and the great entomological community are key for identifying what names work and what don’t. 

Though there are many experts and enthusiasts out there, it doesn’t necessarily mean they always have the answers about why a common name exists as it does. Their origin may ultimately remain unknown because no one documented the rationale and it’s because of this that a common name may come into question.

“That’s the problem. We never get the reasons for things.”

If there isn’t a well-understood reason for something or if in hindsight a reason isn’t very well justified, then there’s room for change. Just like science itself, it’s a process of hypothesizing, researching, and concluding. And if you don’t agree with the outcome, or in this case, the name? Create a new hypothesis, test it, and come up with a more acceptable, well-founded standard.

The post They Call It Worm. They Call It Lame. That’s Not Its Name. appeared first on A\J.

Since our current food system gives us the freedom to go to the grocery store and buy any type of food packaged up on a shelf, the connection between the consumer and where food comes from is often lost and taken for granted. But all of our nourishment comes from the earth and that connection needs to be rekindled. We need to connect ourselves to our food to appreciate how important the Earth is to human existence, just like all other life, and to remember that we are a part of nature. Growing food in our own backyards is one way to foster this connection. People have been gardening for thousands of years, so through growing our own food from the land, we can learn skills that our ancestors have passed down to our generations and connect with history as well.

Cherry tomatoes from my best friend’s garden // Source: Siobhan Mullally

Growing our own food has so many benefits. The health benefits alone are plenty: gardening provides fresh produce, an opportunity to get fresh air and physical activity, and for many individuals, a way to de-stress. Many people have expressed their stress relief through gardening since the act of growing something in the soil takes you to the present moment where you can focus on your own hands planting seeds, weeding, and watering. In our current world, we can get so caught up in our work, our to-do lists, our future worries. With long hours on our computers and our phones always by our sides, it feels like there is no rest from the notifications and all the thoughts that come associated with them. I just finished my undergraduate degree and on my first day of “freedom”, I sat in my room and didn’t know what to do. I had to make a list of “things to do when you don’t know what to do” because my brain was so untrained to accept rest and free time. This is a product of the fast-paced, capitalist world we live in. But last summer, I visited my best friend’s house and helped her garden. When we were digging in the soil, spreading mulch, and watering flowers, there was no space to worry about other things. It was just me and the earth and the present moment. I think gardening can help us reduce our eco-anxiety and whatever other anxieties we feel by giving us this sense of peace.

In addition to growing food, planting native wildflowers is another way to garden that can improve native biodiversity, support pollinator and wildlife communities, and create beautiful, low-maintenance spaces of your yard to enjoy. Planting native vegetation is key to helping create and restore ecosystems for native wildlife.

“By planting vegetables or flowers, we can take those small steps towards sustainability in our own little corner of the world.”

Throughout history, people have planted non-native plants from different areas of the world usually for aesthetic reasons. Many of those non-native plants have since spread, dominated ecosystems, outcompeted important native species, and changed natural areas for the worse. Native plants are so important to support biodiversity and restore natural habitats for other wildlife. In the first article I wrote for A\J, I talked about ecological restoration and how individuals can help restore nature in their own backyard spaces. We all have an impact and we can all make those impacts positive. By planting vegetables or flowers, we can take those small steps towards sustainability in our own little corner of the world.

A mulberry from my mom’s backyard // Source: Siobhan Mullally

Gardening is such a wonderful way to connect to the earth, but it becomes a problem for those of us who do not have any space to do so. If you’re like me and you don’t have your own land to create a garden, there are other ways to plant and create mobile gardens. You can plant vegetables, herbs, or flowers in small pots in your house or apartment, on a balcony or porch, or in window boxes. You can also seek out local community gardens in your neighbourhood and look into renting or sharing a garden space there. There are options to be sustainable for nearly everyone and there continue to be more inclusive options as our communities move in the right direction.

If gardening just isn’t your thing or you can’t make it work for you, that’s okay. We’re all connected to nature and you can feel that just by going outside and appreciating what is around you. It starts with mindfulness. If you go outside, whether you are in your backyard, on a city street, or in a park, you can be intentional about what you focus on. Mindfulness teaches us to be present and aware of our surroundings. Being mindful in nature is paying attention to all the little details of nature around us. A mosaic of pinecones and leaves on your lawn, a fuzzy caterpillar crossing the sidewalk, birds singing to each other, the soft sound of wind blowing through trees, the feel of grass beneath your shoe soles. These details can ground you in nature and allow you to zoom in closer and feel like you are a part of it, not separate from it. It really comes down to establishing and fostering a relationship with nature whether you are planting a wildflower garden, growing tomatoes on your balcony, or taking a walk around your block and paying attention to the world around you.

Observing pollinators on my walk home from school // Source: Siobhan Mullally

“By stepping outside, not only are you getting a good dose of fresh oxygen, serotonin, vitamin D, and maybe a pretty sunset out of it – you’re reconnecting with the earth. The ground you’re walking on. The plants and animals that you coexist with. The little delights that live and thrive and breathe and walk and live all around you. And if we keep connecting with these things, I hope we will feel a little bit more grounded in our own backyards, realizing that we’re part of nature and we can take care of it in the footsteps of people who have done so for many generations. We can get to know the names of the species around us, the bird calls, the texture of the grass outside, the smell of the soil in our gardens. These details are important – they are vital to upholding the connection we have to the Earth. And we will be able to fight for this planet and remedy our eco-anxiety if we keep tending to the relationship we have with nature.” -Siobhan Mullally, “A Being in Nature: How the Mourning Dove’s Call of Inspiration Quieted My Busy Mind”

The post Touch the Earth appeared first on A\J.

Alternatives Journal and the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation are hosting a celebration of the possible expansion of the Greenbelt into Waterloo Region and Wellington County. There’s just one problem: earlier this month, Waterloo Regional council voted for revisions to the greenbelt expansion before agreeing to join. In fact, if these revisions aren’t met, regional chair Ken Seiling says the Region is, “quite happy to be left out.” Sounds serious. Let’s take a closer look.

By now, most people in mid-Ontario know about the Greenbelt. Enacted in 2005, “Ontario’s Greenbelt is an area of permanently protected landscape of prime farmland and natural systems, as well as vibrant communities. It surrounds the Golden Horseshoe, and is vital to the quality of life in southern Ontario.”  (Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation) The Greenbelt Plan curbs urban sprawl and protects natural and rural lands from development in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area.

Preserving the rural and natural land within the Greenbelt positively influences so many intersecting aspects of society: recreation, health, air, water, food, transportation, and the economy to name a few. By curbing sprawl, urban centres must focus on doing more with less, and rather than build out, create vibrant cores with walk-able, transit-centric communities.

These priorities match with Waterloo Region’s, so what’s the problem with joining the Greenbelt? Well, let’s go back to 2004 when Ken Seiling, Waterloo Region’s regional chair and Kevin Thomason, a community advocate with Smart Growth Waterloo Region who wears many hats, travelled to Queen’s Park. They asked premier McGuinty to be included under the newly formed provincial Greenbelt legislation. At the time, the province decided to focus on the inner ring of the Greater Toronto Area for Greenbelt designation, and this excluded Waterloo Region. However, at the same time, Waterloo Region was targeted by the province for a population increase of 15 per cent in five years by in the Places to Grow act.

“Waterloo was left with the worst of both worlds,” says Thomason, “we were getting all of the growth, none of the protection.”

Waterloo Region is unique because it is almost entirely dependent on groundwater, and a population increase puts a lot of pressure on that usage. The Region realized stronger protection was needed for their land and water, and that they would have to do it unsupported by the Greenbelt Plan.

Luckily, because the Region of Waterloo depends so much on groundwater, they have a history of prioritizing the environment, and they were up for the challenge.

“We weren’t being included in the provincial greenbelt,” says Thomason, “so we decided to build our own here and in fact, we’ll even do it better than the province’s because we can learn from their mistakes.”

Over the next ten years, the Region created a set of policies to act as their own “home-grown greenbelt.”  Two policies stand out. The Protected Countryside designation and Countryside Line worked as two complimentary policies designed to protect the entire Waterloo moraine and impose strict boundaries on every urban centre in the region from small hamlets to larger cities. These were enacted in the Regional Official Plan in 2009, among other policies meant to protect the land and water. Developers fought the entire Plan in court after court until a settlement was reached in 2015.  

“Thank goodness the region spent millions of dollars defending [the ROP],” says Thomason, “but because of it, we now have this interesting situation coming full circle. Our local protection is so good that it might actually even be better than parts of the Greenbelt…we need to make sure the strongest of either [policies] prevail and that the Greenbelt doesn’t erode or degrade our local protections that we’ve spent millions of dollars in the last 15 years working on.”

This is why Ken Seiling and the regional council voted for revisions. But what kind of revisions are they looking for exactly?

In the Region’s February 28 report sent to the province in response to the Growing the Greenbelt proposal, they are asking for the following:

• Stronger language to give municipalities the option to enforce policy beyond the minimum outlined in the Greenbelt Plan.
• Allowance for the policies with the highest protection to prevail
• Better protection for the groundwater Waterloo Region depends upon
• Revision of the current policy restricting municipalities regarding aggregate extraction
• Commitment from the province to more consultation with municipalities
• Commitment from the province to use the best technical information and municipal land-use planning information
• Allowance for municipalities’ ongoing planning projects to be completed and respected before the final mapping for the greenbelt expansion is completed.

The full report can be read on the Planning and Works committee meeting agenda on pages 39 to 49 here.

How likely is the province to meet the Region’s requests? The provincial minister of municipal affairs Bill Mauro sent a letter to Waterloo Regional Council saying, “If we were to move forward with a Greenbelt expansion, we would work with the Region of Waterloo to ensure that a new Greenbelt boundary does not result in a reduction of existing local protections. That may include potential changes to the Greenbelt Plan if they are needed.”

You can view the whole letter here.

Interpretations of the letter differ. Kevin Thomason is optimistic. He says, “you’re not going to be getting a clearer message, and it’s highly, highly unusual for a minister to send a letter to ever single Councillor saying that I’ve heard your concerns and we’ll work with you on them. We’re very lucky to have exactly what we need to have happening which is the province is offering to work with the region to make sure the right things happen.”

Ken Seiling on the other hand feels the letter was too vague. “I don’t know what that means at this point in time, or where they’re prepared to go. So I really can’t comment because I don’t know what they intend to do.”

While all of Waterloo’s townships and cities have agreed to the Region’s legislation over the past ten years, Thomason feels the missing piece in the Region’s current protection is the province. “This opportunity for Greenbelt expansion is bringing the province to the table and in fact frankly, all of these local protections we developed always anticipated eventual Greenbelt expansion for reinforcement. We need a strong second layer of protection. We need the permanence that only the provincial government can bring.”

Seiling doesn’t feel that way. He feels local legislation is stronger than provincial because citizens are quite active on the local level, while provincial legislation is not conducive to citizen participation, and decisions can be made with little or no citizen input.

Ultimately the best of both protections is what needs to happen in the Region of Waterloo. Both parties have the same goal – to curb urban sprawl and protect our green spaces and water.

While the deadline for this round of citizen feedback on the Growing the Greenbelt proposal has passed, it’s still up to us to keep the momentum on this proposal going.

“The most important thing is that these large-scale, land-use planning decisions only happen once or twice in a generation.” says Thomason. “There’s a lot of money at stake – a lot of developers, a lot of people out there who are speaking with chequebooks and you know wallets and that sort of thing. That’s where we need to make sure that the public has an equally strong voice and is part of the process, and that every citizen is speaking up for the future that they want to see. If not, there’s plenty of others who will speak up for an alternative future.” 

Tell your local MPP you care about the greenbelt, and that implementing it should not undermine current Regional protections.

Follow progress at greenbelt.ca and Ontario.ca/greenbelt

Other Resources:

Ontario’s original Places to Grow document.

Waterloo Region’s Regional Official Plan.

The post The Greenbelt is Growing appeared first on A\J.

In the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver, a community is buzzing. Hives for Humanity is a non-profit organization based in Vancouver. They work to enhance the communities where their bee hives reside in by connecting people to honeybees and native bees, gardens and communities through the creation of opportunities. Their core work is with at-risk communities in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, but Hives for Humanity also branches out to connect with other communities in Vancouver.

Sarah Common, Chief Community Officer at Hives for Humanity, founded the organization with her mother, Julia in 2012. It was the result of Common placing a hive in a community garden she was working in.

“I was looking for ways to make the garden more meaningful to the community, and create more opportunity for community ownership and engagement to try and enliven that space” says Common. As a result, she was able to hone her mother’s beekeeping skills and allow them to share their skill sets with a community that wouldn’t have otherwise had the opportunity to be in a garden with bees and learn how to bee keep. 

Sarah (left) and Julia Common (right)

After placing the hive in one garden, they found that many community members we’re taking ownership of the bees, protecting, observing and caring for them. They received a lot of questions from community members asking about opportunities for them in the following years.

“Most people in this community are focused on the moment and survival in the present,” says Common. “Hopeful thoughts of next year are essentially a luxury.” They decided to honour those requests and continue to support the at-risk communities of people and pollinators.

Downtown Eastside of Vancouver is where their core work takes place and the future location of their Bee Space, a retail storefront for the organization. There are many factors that contribute to the poverty, homelessness and unstable housing that occur in the DTES Common said. One of the things that those factors tie back to is the experience of trauma. Their Therapeutic Beekeeping Program creates a positive and supportive environment that fosters self-worth and pride.

“It brings people to leave behind their emotional baggage, trauma and chaos they carry with them and leave that behind when they enter the apiary,” says Common. “When they come into this place, they’re focusing on the vibrations of the bees, the smells of the hives and caring for this living, breathing system.”

The therapeutic powers of the hive and the gardens are not limited to those who have experienced trauma. Common stresses that it is a therapeutic experience for all. Everyone has stress and the bees provide an opportunity to relieve that stress.  “That experience of understanding how interconnected to every is universal no matter what you’re doing in the apiary,” says Common.

One of the things they’re finding is how empowering it is for people in the DTES community to be taking leadership roles, becoming environmental stewards and making substantial differences for the bees through the provision of habitat and forage. “People in this neighbourhood are used to being marginalized and pushed aside.” Common continues that for them, by taking on meaningful roles and creating change, it becomes a positive experience for the community to know they can be an ambassador for the bees and help relieve some of the bees’ struggles.

After building connections with people and communities, Common has found that through the winter months, reestablishing those connections can be difficult. “A lot can change in three days for people in this community, let alone three months,” says Commons. The Bee Space would provide a year-round location for Hives for Humanity and the community and allow the organization to achieve financial sustainability. They would be able to offer employment and volunteer opportunities, host workshops and feature their products.  The Bee Space would be a huge opportunity for them to ground themselves in the community. Currently, the City of Vancouver has granted them $25,000, provided they raise the other half of the $50,000 needed to build the Bee Space.

“It’s opportunities that create lasting change and empower someone to take a new path that make’s them feel good and valued,” Common said. “It’s that piece of self-worth that makes a difference in recovery, healing and moving forward. That is the core of everything we’re doing, which is creating self-worth in individuals and building community pride.” 

Their goal is to keep outreaching, engaging and building the sustainability of their programs in different communities to create a connected group of apiaries in and around the city. In the future, Common and her mother hope to grow the organization and have hives set up in communities around world.

Support Hives for Humanity’s Bee Space by donating to their crowd funding campaign. Follow their initiatives on Twitter and visit their website to learn more about the organization. 

The post Harvesting Community Pride appeared first on A\J.

EACH WEEK, A\J staffers share our favourite facts & findings from whatever books, articles, documentaries, podcasts and other media we’ve been consuming. Here’s what we’ve learned this week!

Physics of the world’s oldest broken bone pushes the date of land-dwelling animals’ appearance back by 2 million years.
Source: IFLscience.com \ Found by nik

Starting this summer, Duke Energy will build a facility near Epcot that will provide solar power to Walt Disney World. The power plant’s 48,000 solar panels will be arranged in the shape of a Mickey Mouse head.
Source: Orlando Sentinel \ Found by Rachel

Politics is for the bees! The Bí Project is aiming to turn signs from the Irish same-sex marriage referendum campaigns into urban beehives in Dublin.
Source: The Irish Times \ Found by nik

Sydney has recently started paving roads with a more environmentally friendly asphalt mix containing recycled printer toner, marking the world’s first commercial use for toner waste.
Source: The Guardian \ Found by Rachel

One of the world’s largest solar plants has been opened in Pakistan with the aim of supplying clean, reliable energy and helping alleviate the country’s chronic power shortages.
Source: Responding to Climate Change \ Found by Rachel

A Dutch start-up called Nerdalize has developed a radiator that stores the heat generated by computer servers to create “data furnaces” that can warm homes and offices.
Source: BBC \ Found by Rachel

A California-based non-profit, GRID Alternatives, plans to give away 1,600 free solar panels to California’s poorest residents by 2016.
Source: Inhabitat.com \ Found by Rachel

In France, a new law was recently passed that mandates all new buildings in commercial zones must partially cover their roofs in either plants or solar panels.
Source: CSGlobe \ Found by Rachel

The post The Best Things Ever of All Time, This Week! appeared first on A\J.

EACH WEEK, A\J staffers share our favourite facts & findings from whatever books, articles, documentaries, podcasts and other media we’ve been consuming. Here’s what we’ve learned this week!

Things from the Internet!

Photojournalist Martin Edström has taken a series of 360° panoramic images of Son Doong, the world’s largest cave, in Vietnam. 
Source: National Geographic \ Found by Rachel

An international committee of taxonomists has chosen their top ten species discovered in 2014 from more than 18,000 choices! Highlights include a species of spider that cartwheels and a feathered dinosaur with chicken-like features.
Source: The ESF Top 10 New Species for 2015 \ Found by Jordan

Walk Score recently released its annual list of America’s most cycling-friendly cities, with Cambridge, Massachusetts, taking the the top spot. The company takes into account bike-lane availability, plus the number of hills in a city, bike-commuting rates, and how often bikers have to de-saddle along their routes, among other factors.
Source: Grist \ Found by Rachel

A study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently concluded that solar energy holds the best potential for meeting the planet’s long-term energy needs while reducing greenhouse gases.
Source: Computerworld \ Found by Rachel

According to a new study led by Yale University, worms and other small soil-dwelling animals act as a buffer against climate change by feeding on microbes that release carbon dioxide from decaying organic matter.
Source: Al Jazeera America \ Found by Rachel

Things from Videos!

A time-lapse video shows how bees develop, from larvae to when they hatch.
Source: National Geographic \ Found by Rachel

The post The Best Things Ever of All Time, This Week! appeared first on A\J.

Widespread public debate on building vast networks of snaking energy pipelines throughout Canada dominated the country’s environmental newsreel in 2014, and will continue making headlines in the year ahead.

A collection of Canada’s top environmental NGOs told A\J the climate change file – particularly an uptick in news stories, op-eds, consultations and street-level protests over whether and where oil and gas pipelines could be situated – was the environmental story of the year.

RELATED: A\J’s pipelines coverage

Devon Page, head of environmental legal group Ecojustice, said there has been more conversation and public interest in the fine print of pipeline projects, shifting climate patterns and the export of bitumen than he has ever seen before.

Pipelines have become stand-ins for Canadians’ larger concerns over the climate impacts of extracting, refining and exporting tar sands oil. 

This past year, opposition to pipeline projects mounted out of fear the risks to community health were too large to ignore. While protests in British Columbia failed to halt oil giant Kinder Morgan’s bid to explore a proposed pipeline route through protected green space on Burnaby Mountain, the crush of litigation against energy resource projects has hammered home in the final days of 2014 the idea that social license to build pipelines from First Nations and the general public is no trivial or easily attained permit. And without it, no project is likely to advance beyond the drawing board.

Pipelines – from Enbridge’s long-opposed Northern Gateway in BC and Line 9 reversal in Ontario; to TransCanada’s Energy East, stretching some 4,400 kilometres from Alberta to refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick; to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain project in Burnaby – have become stand-ins for Canadians’ larger concerns over the climate impacts of extracting, refining and exporting tar sands oil.

That’s according to Tim Grey, head of Toronto-based ENGO Environmental Defence. He told A\J the growing rancour between the public and government over the lack of transparency on energy projects will factor into the next federal election, slated for October 2015.

But the shift in collective attitude has already led to political change on the climate file. In Ontario and Quebec, community concern over the $12-billion Energy East project, slated to pump 1.1 million barrels of oil daily to eastern refineries, has led to numerous government reviews of the project. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, embroiled in a lengthy war of words with Prime Minister Stephen Harper over everything from fiscal transfers to mining infrastructure, modified the Ministry of the Environment portfolio to include Climate Change. She also put an outspoken MPP from Toronto, former Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray, at the helm. The first discussion paper on Ontario’s climate response is expected in early January 2015.

Beyond swelling opposition to energy projects, Anne Bell from Ontario Nature told A\J 2014 was a good year in Ontario for taking action to protect pollinators catastrophically affected by neonicotinoids, a class of synthetic pesticide. Declining bee populations risk the economic viability of $897-million worth of apples, cherries, peaches, plums and many other field crops that make up Ontario’s $6.7-billion agricultural sector.

Neonics are believed to be responsible for up to 70 per cent of bee deaths in recent years, leading to a mortality rate nearly two-and-a-half times sustainable levels. In November, Premier Wynne vowed to reduce the harmful effects of neonic use on honey bees by 80 percent by 2017, an ambitious target.

Anna Baggio from Wildlands League told A\J the plight of the country’s endangered beluga whales, woodland caribou, American eels and other at-risk species is a crucial story worth watching in the year ahead. “Their situations are not improving and governments aren’t doing enough,” Baggio said.

Ontario Nature and the Wildlands League hired Ecojustice to lead a lawsuit against the Wynne government, filed in September 2013. They argue a July 2013 change to the Endangered Species Act made it easier for industry operating in the province to acquire exemptions from the Act which forbade the killing, harming or harassing of species-at-risk and their habitat. A decision in that court case is expected next year.

Yet whether it’s endangered species, a broken environmental assessment process, resource pipelines or dying pollinators, the environmental challenges of 2014 will remain our problems to solve into 2015 and beyond. And far from isolated affairs, the cumulative strains on our air, our land, our water and our atmosphere interact in ways we’re only beginning to understand. “Our systems aren’t designed to respond to cumulative pressures,” stressed Baggio, “and they need to be.”

The routinely held belief in government acting in the best interest of its citizens, rather than those of resource companies, is beginning to erode.

But far from giving up, Canadians appear to be becoming more deeply engaged. The routinely held belief in government acting in the best interest of its citizens, rather than those of resource companies, is beginning to erode, according to Page from Ecojustice.

The pace of ground-level change may be slower, however, but Canadian’s attitudes are on a trajectory toward halting the kinds of energy projects the federal government and pipeline purveyors once thought foolproof. And in the process, this shift is reaffirming an environmental consciousness needed to keep governments transparent, industry honest and our shared environment as healthy as we can manage together.

Check out A\J’s top stories of 2014 – and keep an eye out for the story of neonics in Ontario from Anne Bell in A\J’s April Health issue.

The post What’s on the Environmental Agenda for 2015 appeared first on A\J.

Our planet is supported on the wings of bees, butterflies, skippers (flies that hover over flowers) and hummingbirds. These pollinators are threatened primarily by habitat loss, land degradation and both urban and agricultural pesticide use. Any time a natural area is converted to a subdivision, or a sterile lawn is managed with pesticides, these pollinators are heavily compromised, and often times killed.

Enter beekeeper Jeri Parrent. Parrent has a PhD in ecology and owns a farm on the Bruce Peninsula. Parrent is studying pollinators native to her region – such as the monarch butterfly, ruby-throated hummingbird, bumblebee and squash bee – with the help of
her community.

A\J: What is “citizen science” and where did you get the support to do the research?

Jeri Parrent: The ultimate goal of our pollinator observation and monitoring project is to partner with farmers, students and community members to document the important native plant pollinators in our regions, and to better understand their distribution and abundance in both natural and agricultural areas. We received a grant from the TD Friends of the Environment Fund in the spring to launch our pilot project this summer.

Citizen science projects generally involve scientists reaching out to the public to collaborate; usually that means collecting data that greatly extends the amount of information for scientists to study. In this case, we specifically solicited participation from ecological farmers because we are interested in comparing pollinator data from natural areas to that on farmland managed in an ecologically sensitive manner.

Why did you decide to undertake this project?

Dr. Thorsten Arnold and I are part of the Grey Bruce Centre for Agroecology, which is a small cooperative of rural farmers and research professionals aiming to combine practical farming, ecological research and educational outreach. We realized that although there has been a great deal of attention recently given to the rapid decline in honeybee populations due to neonicotinoid insecticide use on Ontario’s cash crops, very little attention was being given to the potential consequences for other native pollinators. In fact, we know very little about the diversity and abundance of pollinators that are native to our region.

Why are pollinators dying?

As with so many other species suffering severe population declines, there is not one single cause for the recent population crashes of many pollinator species such as the honeybee or the monarch butterfly. Instead, it is a combination of factors, including loss of habitat, both for nesting and for feeding. Many of the plant species that serve as critical food sources for pollinators, such as milkweed and goldenrod, are often eradicated as weeds. Also, through the movement of pollinators around the world by humans, we have introduced a variety of exotic pests and diseases. One example is the escape of diseased bumblebees from commercial greenhouse operations, where they are used to pollinate plants such as tomatoes, which has spread illness to native bumblebees. Lastly, there is the increased use of insecticides. These chemicals do not discriminate between the insect pests that they are intended to control and the beneficial insects that serve as plant pollinators. As a result we are seeing drastic declines and huge die-offs of honeybee populations.

Without pollinators the world would be a much less tasty place.

Why should we be worried about the health of pollinators?

Pollinators are critical for the success of so many of our food crops. They supply untold millions of dollars in free services to our farmers, and without them the world would be a much less tasty place. Furthermore, insects are the food source for many other species: insect-eating birds such as swallows and phoebes, as well as bats and small mammals.

What was the outcome of your pilot project?

We were able to partner with a number of ecological farmers from the CRAFT network (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), members from the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, and a number of other rural landowners and organic gardeners. We have also interacted with students at area schools and hope to expand and continue to work with teachers to integrate pollinator education into the classroom. As a pilot project, the data from the first year will likely be somewhat limited, but the project has been a real success in terms of developing a network of participants. We can now evaluate and refine our current protocols for next season. We hope to obtain additional funding so we can continue to provide the necessary training and support to our citizen scientists and to launch our observation and monitoring projects at a larger scale in 2015.  

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It’s the Smoking Gun. A groundbreaking report published in July by the international peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE has shed new light on the plight of honeybees. Taken all together, the evidence indicates that bees are at risk from a multitude of factors.

Although the plight of pollinators is familiar news, the winter of 2012-13 was particularly catastrophic. Some Ontario beekeepers lost 70 per cent of their colonies. Overall, Canada lost nearly 30 per cent – roughly 200,000 bee colonies. These losses spell hardship and even disaster for honey producers, but the role of bees and other pollinators is crucial for global agriculture, contributing an estimated $200-billion in ecological services.

Many factors are blamed: cold, wet weather, malnutrition and habitat loss. A growing number of beekeepers are implicating neonicotinoids (aka neonics), a class of pesticides used by corn, soybean and canola farmers. George Monbiot says they are “the new DDT” contaminating the agricultural environment. 

Agricultural runoff [in Holland] was so concentrated with imidacloprid that it could be used itself as an effective pesticide.

Reports that the EU has passed a two-year ban on neonics are misleading. A few have been suspended for purposes mainly affecting honeybees – but they continue to be used widely. A May 2013 Dutch study, “Macro-Invertebrate Decline in Surface Water Polluted with Imidacloprid,” found that agricultural runoff was so concentrated with imidacloprid that it could be used itself as an effective pesticide. This toxic runoff is leading to 70-per-cent less aquatic invertebrate species richness and abundance, a factor with unknown consequences for the broader ecosystem.

The American Bird Conservancy commissioned internationally renowned toxicologist Pierre Mineau to research the impact of neonics on birds and aquatic systems. The 100-page report concludes that the chemicals are also lethal to birds and in some areas both surface- and groundwater are contaminated beyond the lethal threshold for many aquatic species.

When the entire ecosystem is examined, it becomes clear how chemicals interact with organisms in complex and unpredictable ways. Up until now, most research has fed bees only one chemical at a time. But the July PLOS ONE article, entitled “Crop Pollination Exposes Honey Bees To Pesticides,” tested how bees are exposed to combinations and loads of pesticides in the real world. It found insecticides in pollen samples at concentrations higher than median lethal doses. It also implicated “fairly safe” fungicides in honeybee population declines. Bees who ingest these fungicides are more susceptible to the parasite Nosema ceranae, which can result in complete colony collapse. Bees are subject to an unsupervised cocktail of chemicals in the environment, putting many other species at risk.

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I used to be scared of bees. As a child I panicked and ran away screaming from bees during recess. Usually, the bee was just chillin’ on a dandelion. I know now that the bee was probably just minding its own business, collecting pollen from flowers.

Honeybees as a species were imported into North America in the early 17th century. Humans have been keeping hives for centuries, to help with the pollination of plants and to harvest the honey these bees make. There are over 4,000 species of bees that are native to North America, none of which are domesticated like the honeybee.

More and more people these days are getting into hobby beekeeping and starting their own, non-professional beehives. I visited two beekeepers in Waterloo Region in Southern Ontario and learned about how they started their hives. Melissa has been a beekeeper for around two years and Marco for about one.

In recent years, colony collapse disorder (CCD) has emerged as an environmental crisis. Beehives are dying at alarming rates which consequently puts our food supply at risk. Pollinators like honeybees fertilize flowers and enable the creation of seeds and fruit. Pollinators aid in the production of one third of the world’s crops. Colony collapse disorder clearly indicates that the health of honeybees is at serious risk.

RELATED: 37 Million Dead Bees Bring Strong Warnings and International Bee Expert Speaks Out

Pesticide use and mono-crop farming are factors linked to CCD. Keeping honeybees without conventional pesticides is just one way to help pollination of nearby plants. Natural beekeeping practices include not using pesticides in the beehive for mites, or on the fields surrounding your hive.

Bees in Marco’s hive drinking honey.

If you are interested in beekeeping, start by educating yourself. To get an overview of honey bees and the problems they face today, start by watching these films: More Than Honey (2012), Queen of the Sun (2010) and Vanishing of the Bees (2009).  

There are lots of books about beekeeping and you will probably want one comprehensive book for your library. Most geographical regions also have a beekeeping association. Look up your local association and get connected; here’s a list of Beekeepers Associations in Canada (and some more links here). Many of these associations have a mentorship program for new beekeepers. Learn from local beekeepers about how the honey bees are faring in your region. You may also be able to buy your first nucleus colony through other beekeepers in the association.

A simple thing anyone can do to help bees is to provide food by not plucking your dandelions, or plant other bee-friendly flowers. You can also get involved in taking political action to push for better regulations on pesticides that have not been proven safe for bees. In Ontario, the government is starting a consultation process on pesticide use and their link to the health of honeybees, and will be restricting the use of neonicotinoids starting this autumn.

RELATED: Read this before you yank out that dandelion.

So whatever your interest in helping honey bees, the next time you see one buzzing around your garden, don’t panic, and be glad the bees are helping our food grow. We couldn’t do it without them. 

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