[Pollinator] World relies on endangered bees for 153 billion euros

Wed Nov 18 17:28:36 PST 2009

World relies on endangered bees  for 153 billion euros   
____________________________________
     2009-11-18  
_Elisabeth  Schmid
youris.com_ (mailto:elisabeth.schmid at youris.com) 
Via Dogana 3 
20123 Milano 
ITALY 
_elisabeth.schmid at youris.com_ (mailto:elisabeth.schmid at youris.com)   
Tel: +39 0286489285 
Fax: + 39 02809250 
_http://www.youris.com_ (http://www.youris.com/)     
Precious insect pollinators hold an almighty  153 billion euros worldwide 
on their industrious wings for the main crops  that feed the planet every 
year. If they all disappeared overnight, so  would 9.5% of the total value of 
global agriculture production used for  human food     
____________________________________
   Although bees are nowhere near becoming extinct  any time altogether 
soon, as some media may have somewhat inaccurately  prophesised, the sharp 
decline in their biodiversity is nevertheless  deeply worrying. With its 14.2 
billion euros tied to insect pollination  per year, the EU looks highly 
vulnerable, even if East Asia is most at  risk with an eye-watering 51.5 billion 
euros. The USA, Canada and Bermuda  figure resembles that of the EU most 
closely, with a combined insect  pollination value of 14.4 billion euros. But 
Europe must beware even more,  if you think that non-EU countries rely on 
insect pollination for a  further total of 7.8 billion euros. 

Middle East Asia, Central  Asia, East Asia, North Africa and West Africa 
stand out on the high  vulnerability list, as it appears from a study about 
the potential  economic impact of insect pollinator decline, which is about to 
be  published in the January issue of “Ecological Economics” journal. One 
of  the authors of the research, Dr Josef Settele from the Helmholtz Center  
for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Halle, Germany, is also the  
coordinator of the ALARM project (www.alarmproject.net) which aims at  outlining the 
most urgent countermeasures to map and stem pollinator  decline. 

“This is an analysis on a global scale, relating to the  year 2005”, Dr 
Settele says. Assuming all insect pollinators are lost, the  researchers have 
also calculated the money that would be needed to be  spent to replace them. 
“We reckon that, in order to replace this service  by other means, such as 
artificial pollination which is much more  expensive and difficult, the 
world would need to spend between 190 and 310  billion euros”, Dr Settele warns. 
Of course, the price of produce would  increase dramatically as a 
consequence. 

The study, called  “Economic valuation of the vulnerability of world 
agriculture confronted  with pollinator decline”, has used FAO statistics for its 
economics. It  also confirms that the production of 84% of crop species 
cultivated in  Europe depend directly on insect pollinators. 

Fruits and  vegetables turn out to be especially affected, with a loss 
estimated at 50  billion euros each, followed by edible oilseed crops with 39 
billion  euros. Scientists also found that the average value of crops that 
depend  on insect pollinators for their production was on average much higher 
than  that of the crops not pollinated by insects, such as cereals or sugar  
cane. 

As far as the yearly rate of the bee loss goes, Dr Settele  thinks it is 
impossible to quantify it with current means. Yet the trend,  he says, is “
extremely worrying because we could be about to lose the vast  majority of the 
most specialized pollinator species across Europe”.  Mainly, we are talking 
about bees here, followed by hover flies,  butterflies and moths. 

The point is, our understanding of why many  bee species are in danger is 
still patchy, explains Dr Simon Potts, a  Principal Research Fellow from the 
University of Reading, UK, who is also  a scientific adviser of a new 
project launched outside Europe by the  Global Environment Facility (GEF) together 
with the UN Environment  Programme (UNEP) to better protect pollinating 
bees, bats and birds in  Brazil, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan and South 
Africa.  

“It’s quite shocking to see that in most countries a large  proportion of 
our bee species is under severe threat”, Dr Potts says. “a  10% loss in 
bees is not an unrealistic future prospect for Europe; and a  10% loss of 
insect pollination could have huge economic consequences and  also negative 
impacts on the pollination of the wide variety of wild  flowering plants. There 
are 2,250 bee species in Europe, and many more in  the tropics, but the 
general principles of pollinator conservation here in  Europe can also be 
transferred to the tropics. If you grow coffee in areas  where there are fragments 
of forest, you get better quality coffee and a  better yield, because there 
are more pollinators. In the GEF project we  try and work with farmers to 
get them to see the economic value of that.  We have demonstration farms for 
this purpose”. 

Dr Potts, together  with his close collaborator Stuart Roberts, aim to put 
together a European  bee red list, although, there is still quite a long way 
to go to assemble  it properly. In Germany, for instance, “there are 560 
bee species and 289  of them are on the red list”, Mr Roberts says. “In 
Switzerland, 42% of  species are in danger. In Finland the percentage is 45%, 
whereas in the  Netherlands 54% of all bee species are under threat.” 

All in all,  9 European countries have so far provided their own full 
assessment, and  on this basis the average number of species under threat, Mr 
Roberts  concludes, “is just under 45%. Loss of habitat is believed to be the  
biggest driver everywhere”. If any future mapping of world bees reveals  
even higher losses, there is going to be some very hard thinking to be  done. 
Hopefully, this may happen well before we all have to recur to some  
horrendously expensive and laborious artificial pollination systems.    
____________________________________
   Notes to editor:  
_http://www.youris.com/Environment/Bees_ 
(http://www.youris.com/Environment/Bees) World  relies on endangered bees for 153 billion euros   
____________________________________
     2009-11-18  
_Elisabeth  Schmid
youris.com_ (mailto:elisabeth.schmid at youris.com) 
Via Dogana 3 
20123 Milano 
ITALY 
_elisabeth.schmid at youris.com_ (mailto:elisabeth.schmid at youris.com)   
Tel: +39 0286489285 
Fax: + 39 02809250 
_http://www.youris.com_ (http://www.youris.com/)     
Precious insect pollinators hold an almighty  153 billion euros worldwide 
on their industrious wings for the main crops  that feed the planet every 
year. If they all disappeared overnight, so  would 9.5% of the total value of 
global agriculture production used for  human food     
____________________________________
   Although bees are nowhere near becoming extinct  any time altogether 
soon, as some media may have somewhat inaccurately  prophesised, the sharp 
decline in their biodiversity is nevertheless  deeply worrying. With its 14.2 
billion euros tied to insect pollination  per year, the EU looks highly 
vulnerable, even if East Asia is most at  risk with an eye-watering 51.5 billion 
euros. The USA, Canada and Bermuda  figure resembles that of the EU most 
closely, with a combined insect  pollination value of 14.4 billion euros. But 
Europe must beware even more,  if you think that non-EU countries rely on 
insect pollination for a  further total of 7.8 billion euros. 