Friend,

If you've eaten a meal today, I bet you've eaten at least one food we risk losing if bee populations continue to decline. Coffee, strawberries, apples -- we have all of these and more because of bees.

Bees are dying off across the country -- and around the world -- with potentially disastrous consequences for our environment and food supply. If we want to save the bees, we need to stop using the pesticides that are killing them.

Tell Congress: Take the first step to protect bees by banning bee-killing pesticides in wildlife refuges.

A major contributing factor to bee die-offs is a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids (or neonics), which can contaminate pollen and harm pollinators.1

Of all places, you'd think bees could be safe in wildlife refuges. But last summer, the Trump administration lifted a ban on the use of bee-killing pesticides in wildlife refuges.2

Fortunately, there's a bill now in the U.S. House that would restore the ban and give it the force of law. Tell Congress: Pass H.R. 2854 to make our wildlife refuges safe for bees.

There's no one simple solution to the problem of bees' decline. To save them, we need to address the climate crisis, create safe habitats for them, and phase out pesticides that kill them -- and Environment Colorado has campaigns focused on all of those goals.

But the first, simplest thing we can do right now to save the bees is to make sure they're safe in our wildlife refuges.

I hope you'll join us in taking action today.

Sincerely,

Jeanne Bassett
Senior Associate

1. Erik Stokstad, "European agency concludes controversial 'neonic' pesticides threaten bees," Science Magazine, February 28, 2018.
2. "Trump administration lifts ban on pesticides linked to declining bee numbers," The Guardian, August 3, 2019.