Busy Santa Bees to help Sustain Tourism – Unique Christmas Gift

From bee hives to jungle jam, gift giving is about to get sweeter this Christmas with a new partnership between The Travel Foundation, the sustainable tourism charity, and GlobalGiving.co.uk. Visit GlobalGiving.co.uk to find a list of the Travel Foundation’s destination-based charity projects which are a perfect present for a globetrotting friend or family-member.

E-cards can be bought as gift donations in honour of someone from as little as £5 and projects include a honey production scheme in Mexico. It teaches the art of beekeeping to the people in the Benito Juarez community, which means local people can make and sell honey to nearby hotels and shops for tourists to buy. The project also helps the endangered Melipone bee which is prized for the medicinal value of its honey, so not only does the money go to support local people make a living from tourism it also plays an important role in protecting the species.

Sue Hurdle, chief executive of the Travel Foundation, said: “Albert Einstein famously told us that if the bees disappeared man would have no more than four years to live. Most of us don’t realise that honey bees pollinate about a third of our food supply – bees may be small but they are hugely important, and I’m really excited about our project in Mexico, which also of course helps local people, and gives tourists a delicious local product to enjoy. Globalgiving.co.uk makes it easy to donate to this exciting project.”

All the money will support well-vetted, grassroots projects all over the world. Most of the projects are in the developing world, where a small amount of money makes a big difference.

As well as an e-card with a personal message, the recipient will continue to get e-mail updates about their project for the rest of the year.

The Travel Foundation works with the UK outbound travel industry towards making travel sustainable, giving practical help to make their businesses more sustainable and working on specific projects to improve sustainability in overseas destinations. It also provides information and advice for consumers through a series of ‘Insider Guide’ leaflets giving tips to travellers about how to make their holidays more responsible.

See the 10 minute vireo mystery plight of the bees at:

TheSilence of the BEES

The US is in danger of running out of honey bees to pollinate its almond crop – the country’s number one horticultural export.

February and March are the crucial months for almond growers, as this is when trees blossom and need pollinating. At this time of year, owners of commercial hives take their valuable cargos to California, where almost 80% of the world’s almonds are grown, to service the blossom.

Annually the crop is worth more than $2.5bn and a lot of jobs depend on a good harvest, explains Dan Cummings, one of the directors of California’s Almond Board and head of its bee task force.

Currently about 222,000 hectares are under production to grow almonds. Mr Cummings expects this to grow to 330,000 hectares over the next five years. But, said Mr Cummings, that growth presented a real problem. “Roughly two-thirds of the bees in the US need to come to California for almond pollination,” said Mr Cummings. “Beekeeping in the US is very much migratory.”

The danger is that as the demands of almond growers for healthy hives grow, America will simply not have enough commercial colonies available to travel. Bees travel from as far away as North Carolina to California just so they can be used at the key pollination season.”Last year we were a little short,” said Mr Cummings.

Already, he said, demand for colonies was driving up the price that beekeepers charged for renting out their colonies.

In 2004, beekeepers could get, on average, $54 for every hive they sent to almond groves in California. Last year, prices peaked at about $85, and in 2006 there are reports of owners charging more than $150.

To make matters worse, American bees are suffering a resurgence of debilitating attacks from the varroa mite. These tiny parasites stunt the growth of bees, sap hive resources and slowly kill off the colony. Unfortunately, said Mr Cummings, bee colonies badly affected by varroa typically collapsed at about the same time as almond trees came into flower.

Source: BBC.co.uk

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