Page 1132 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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grandchildren and great-grandchildren—to Noel’s firefighter colleagues and the Canberra rugby league community, I extend my sincere condolences and sympathies. Thank you as well to Glen and Barb for allowing me to share some of Noel’s story today. Vale, Noel Bissett.
World Bee Day
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (5.49): I rise to recognise that yesterday, 20 May, was World Bee Day and to encourage us all to celebrate, give thanks for and protect the humble bee. I acknowledge the many activities and efforts that occurred around Canberra in celebration of World Bee Day and note in particular the efforts made by ACT for Bees and many of our local embassies who are great supporters of this issue.
Bees are amazing. They are an incredible achievement of evolution. Some bees are fat, hairy and multicoloured and some are small and drab. While some species are solitary, some live in complex societies, create honeycomb and communicate by dancing. They are all super pollinators and they have an impressive work ethic. The phrase “busy as a bee” is indeed well founded.
Bees have provided delight to people for as long as we have been on the planet. To anyone who likes beautiful flowers: you can also thank the bees for those because, in order to attract pollinators like bees, flowers evolved from being dull greens and browns to producing the colours we enjoy today.
Most importantly, though, bees are critical to natural ecosystems. Their pollinating function protects and maintains ecosystems and the diversity of plants and animals that thrive in those ecosystems. Without the bees many of these ecosystems would collapse. As the biologist E O Wilson said, if all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate to a rich state of equilibrium; if insects were to disappear, the environment would collapse into chaos.
Bees also pollinate around 75 per cent of the world’s crops, which produce about 90 per cent of the world’s food. Without them the global food system would collapse and people would literally starve. That is right—the little bee you are desperately brushing off your arm is actually keeping you alive.
Since humans started reshaping the planet, bees have faced increasing threats to their existence. In recent years, they have faced increasing peril. Several bee species have already gone extinct. Close to 35 per cent of invertebrate pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, face extinction globally.
The biggest threats are all due to human activities: higher temperatures associated with climate change, intensive farming practices, land use changes, pesticides, and monocropping. So what do we need to do to save the bees and therefore ourselves? We need to address climate change. We need to reduce the use of pesticides and diversify crops. We need to protect and maintain natural environments and ecosystems.
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