British campaigners call for ban on bee harming pesticides

A busy group of bee campaigners were joined by British fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett outside the houses of parliament on Friday. They are trying to urge the British government to support a proposed European Union ban on bee harming pesticides. Britain is currently opposed to the ban saying there is insufficient evidence. The fashion duo handed in a petition at the Prime Minister’s front door ahead of an EU vote on the issue on April 29. Bee campaigner Quentin Gibon said: “We have lost a number of bee species over the last 100 years, they are declining in the area that they cover and so on. This could become a really serious problem. There are parts of China where they have to pollinate fruit trees by hand because they have wiped out their insects through overuse of chemicals, so we really want to act now before it gets to that stage.” Fellow bee enthusiast Catherine Beaumont added: “We were singing earlier ‘Give Bees A Chance’ and that’s what we want to do, we want the pesticides banned, to see if, with these pesticides banned, that is the cause.” Both Britain and Germany were in the minority in abstaining from a vote on the issue earlier this year. But the European commission is threatening to force such a ban through unless member states agree a compromise next week.