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<H1>Welsh Assembly pledges to help protect honey bees</H1>
<P><SPAN class=papercredits>News</SPAN> | <SPAN class=date>1 July, 2009</SPAN>
</P><SPAN class=byline>By Barry Alston</SPAN>
<P><SPAN class=standfirst>WELSH Assembly Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones, has
been meeting members of the Welsh Beekeepers’ Association today (Wednesday, July
1), to discuss how it can work with the association towards reversing the
decline in the bee population in Wales.</SPAN></P>
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<P>The Minister pledged her on-going commitment to help protect and improve the
health of honey bees and to sustaining and supporting beekeeping in Wales.
<P>She also discussed a number of significant initiatives launched recently
relating to bee health. These include:
<P>• The Healthy Bees Plan – a joint Assembly and Defra document which aims to
address the challenges facing beekeepers and is aimed at sustaining the health
of honey bees and beekeeping in England and Wales over the next decade.
<P>• An increase of funding for the National Bee Unit to enhance the current bee
health programme under which the Assembly is contributing £486,000, or roughly
double the previous years’ allocation.</P>
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<P>• The Insect Pollinator Initiative, a £10 million research programme to help
identify the main threats to bees and other insect pollinators.
<P>“Honey bees and other pollinators are vital for local food production, which
is key to the environmentally sustainable farming we are promoting in Wales,”
said the Minister.
<P>“Several initiatives are underway to tackle the decline in the bee population
and working together will be the key to achieving the objectives of these
projects.”
<P>“I am also keen to establish how we can compliment the work of the WBKA and
also how it can support us in our policy development of bee health in
Wales.”</P></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><EM>From Farmer's Guardian</EM></DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive
Director<BR><B>Pollinator Partnership </B><BR>423 Washington Street, 5th
floor<BR>San Francisco, CA
94111<BR>415-362-1137<BR>LDA@pollinator.org</FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial
color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#0000ff size=4 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="14"><B><A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></B></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"></B><BR><A
href="http://www.nappc.org/">www.nappc.org</A><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="12"><B><I>National Pollinator Week is June 22-28, 2009. <BR>Beecome
involved at <A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></I></FONT></B></DIV></FONT><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="1821e8f8cc385d21c806424d8f1cd31"><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/><A HREF=http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222696924x1201468348/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Faltfarm.mediaplex.com%2Fad%2Fck%2F12309%2D81939%2D1629%2D1>Dell Summer Savings: Cool Deals on Popular Laptops - Shop Now!</A></font></DIV></BODY></HTML>