Friend,

Bee populations are collapsing.

Honeybees, bumblebees and other bee species are dying off at a devastating rate, in large part due to the use of a class of toxic pesticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics.

We need to step up if we're going to save the bees -- and we're getting ready to go all-in for these essential pollinators in 2021.

But we can't win without resources from supporters like you, Friend. That's why generous donors are matching donations to Environment Colorado until midnight tomorrow, up to $100,000 nationwide.

Will you double your impact by donating now?

Neonics have become dramatically more common in recent years, and that's a big reason why agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insects, including bees. Neonics cause permanent and irreversible damage to baby bumblebees' brains, weaken their immune systems, and hamper their ability to navigate home to their hives. That leads bee colonies to collapse entirely.1,2,3

The numbers are staggering. One study found that we are half as likely to see a bumblebee today as we were a few decades ago. Another found that the number of honeybee colonies in the U.S. declined by 58 percent from the 1940s to the 2000s.4,5

Here's just some of the critically important work that your donation will support in 2021:

• We'll lead the charge state by state to ban the worst uses of bee-killing neonic pesticides.
• We're urging Gov. Polis to expand bees' habitat through the planting of bee-friendly plants on public lands.
• We're rethinking the overall use of pesticides to grow America's food, and we're working to move our country toward sustainable agricultural practices that are far less chemical-intensive.
• We're calling on the federal government to ban the use of neonics in wild bee safe havens like parks and refuges.

But these efforts take resources, and we want to do even more to save the bees in the year ahead.

If you donate today, your matched contribution will go twice as far, up to $100,000 nationwide. Stand with us to save the bees, and be part of all of our campaigns to protect wild spaces, fight global warming and more.

Thank you for making it all possible,

Hannah Collazo
State Director

1. Lauren Aratani, "Pesticide widely used in US particularly harmful to bees, study finds," The Guardian, August 6, 2019.
2. "US beekeepers reported lower winter losses but abnormally high summer losses," ScienceDaily, June 22, 2020.
3. Katie Hunt, "Pesticides damage the brains of baby bees, new research finds," CNN, March 3, 2020.
4. Chris Mooney, "Bumblebees are dying across North America and Europe as the climate warms, scientists say," The Washington Post, February 6, 2020.
5. Aylin Woodward, "Last year, 40% of honey-bee colonies in the US died. But bees aren't the only insects disappearing in unprecedented numbers." Business Insider, June 21, 2019.

Your donation will be used to support all of our campaigns to protect the environment, from saving the bees and protecting public lands, to standing up for clean water and fighting climate change. None of our work would be possible without supporters like you. Environment Colorado may transfer up to $50 per dues-paying member per year into the Environment Colorado Small Donor Committee.