LET US RE-ECHO THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEES

 

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 9^th 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