[Pollinator] Denver -- Bee Safer Neighborhoods proclamation

[Matthew Shepherd]

Yesterday (Monday), the City and County of Denver passed a proclamation
encouraging the creation of bee-safe neighborhoods. The proclamation
recognizes the threats to bees (and other pollinators) from habitat
destruction, insecticide use, etc., and encourages local residents to band
together to make their neighborhood safer for bees, as well as directing
city/county departments to consider habitat creation in their daily work
and in future rule making.



The text of the proclamation is pasted in below and a PDF is attached.



This proclamation is the result of the hard work of the Living Systems
Institute and Honeybee Keep, with the support of the Colorado State
Beekeepers Association, Friends of the Earth, PANNA, and Beyond Toxics.



Matthew



________



PROCLAMATION
City and County of Denver

Encouraging the Establishment of Bee Safe Neighborhoods



WHEREAS, over the past few decades, there has been a significant loss of
pollinatores, including honey bees, native bees, birds and butterflies,
creating a serious problem that threatens the sustainability of our food
system and the overall health of our environment.



WHEREAS, recent years have seen the decline of pollinator populations due
to a complex set of circumstances including loss of habitat due to modern
farming practices and the prevalence of systemic poisons, including the
neonicotinoids, that become a part of the plant including the pollen and
nectar on which pollinators depend, and



WHEREAS, the plight of the bees has recently received both media attention,
such as the cover story of the August 2013 issue of Time magazine, and
political attention, such as the President's June 20, 2014 memorandum
Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other
Pollinators.



WHEREAS, preserving healthy populations of pollinators and the genetic
diversity of pollinators is necessary to preserve the capacity of the
ecosystem to recover from loss of habitat and toxins in the environment
when better alternatives are developed, and



WHEREAS, urban and suburban residential properties hold the potential to
host a habitat for whole ecosystems without use of toxic substances thereby
preserving genetic diversity and healthy populations of pollinators and
other species, and



WHEREAS, Living Systems Institute and Honeybee Keep, two organizations
working with bees and habitat in the Denver Metro area, have established a
program to help neighborhoods become bee safe and provide recognition for
those neighborhoods who do create a bee safe neighborhood (
http://livingsystemsinst.org/content/bee-safe-neighborhoods), and



WHEREAS, two neighborhoods in Boulder, Colorado and one neighborhood in
Wheat Ridge, Colorado have already demonstrated the feasibility of
neighbors coming together to improve their habitat (
http://livingsystemsinst.org/content/bee-safe-honor-roll), and



WHEREAS, pollinators and humans both benefit from a toxin free habitat with
many flowering and fruiting plants, and a full range of species including
the predators of those species generally considered pests, and



WHEREAS, the more properties in a area participating in the development of
a non-toxic diverse habitat the more effective will be the effort to
preserve genetic diversity of healthy populations of pollinators and other
species,



NOW THEREFORE, BE IT PROCLAIMED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF
DENVER:



Section 1: That the City Council urges the citizens of this great city to
consider the needs of pollinators in their decisions regarding the
landscaping of their properties and the use of toxins on their properties,
including the elimination of systemic toxins that become a part of the
plant, including the pollen and nectar on which pollinators rely.



Section 2: That the City Council encourages its citizens to work with their
neighbors in this endeavor so as to create larger more diverse and toxin
free habitats in order to facilitate the preservation of genetic diversity
and healthy populations of pollinators and other species.



Section 3: That the City Council directs the departments of this city that
impact the use of residential properties to take into account the policy of
creating a diverse habitat when writing rules and fulfilling their duties.



Section 4: That the Clerk of the City and County of Denver shall attest and
affix the seal of the City and County of Denver to this proclamation and
that copies be transmitted to the Office of Sustainability, Public Works,
and Environmental Health for their continued partnership in conservation
and sustainability efforts.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20141021/e3e3f7b0/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Denver_BeeSafeNeighborhoods_oct2014.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 275922 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20141021/e3e3f7b0/attachment-0001.pdf>