LET US RE-ECHO THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEES
The theme
for 2024 “Bee Engaged with Youth."
By Raphael Banda- Media Trainer
May 20 each
year we celebrate the role that bees play in the ecosystem and this year’s
theme was ‘Bee Engaged with Youth’.
The subject emphasizes
the role that young people and media may play in preserving pollinators like
bees.
To place emphasis on the need to protect bees
and other insects as they are key to our food security, on April 9th
2024 , I gave a brief write up on the importance of bees. Read and share your
thoughts:
Most of us naturally complain when we are stung by the bees
and feel good when the bee is found life-less yet we all love honey produced by
the same bees.
But, there is need for the change of mindset and focus our
energies towards protecting these insects as they contribute greatly to our
livelihood.
The extinction of the bees makes sad reading as they make
78% of the food that you and I eat every day. But how much efforts do we make
to protect bees from further extinction? Journalists whether from Private and
public media have a huge role to generate more content around preservation of
cardinal insects such as bees.
Some of the major dangers to the life of the bee are human
activities such as large changes in land use and industrialized agriculture
practices what involves the use of some herb and pesticides. The detrimental
use of pesticides has contributed to destroying habitant for bees and reducing
their available food sources.
Rising temperatures have led to climatic changes that lead
to flooding and droughts all affect the survival of bees’ ecosystems, reduces
their suitability to the environment and threaten their survival.
Journalists and all farmers as well as fruit lovers in
Zambia and elsewhere, ought to know that bees are one of the most efficient and
prevalent pollinators. Both bees and plants benefit from each other due to
their reciprocal relationship. The bees pollinate the plants from flower to
flower, thus, plants reproduce in exchange the bees also eat the pollen which
is a critical component of their diets.
Bees pollinate more than just flowers but also many of our
favourite fruits and vegetables that require the help of bees to pollinate
them, and these range from tomatoes, cucumbers, cotton, eggplants and other
seeds.
As a journalism trainer, I call upon governments and
like-minded environmentally friendly organisations to come up with more
training for journalists on biodiversity and environmental journalism so that
we prevent the complete extinction of important insects such as bees.
We should all do our best to spread the important roles
which bees play in the ecological issue to avert possible extinction of the
bees as this is a humanitarian issue. Bees support our agricultural systems and
their extinction may lead to food crisis for all.
For details and possible media training
Reach out: bandaraphael55@gmail.com or Whatts App
+260979208286
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