Activity Report Explorer

Rio Grande Valley Broadband • Entered by Susan Ostlie on March 30, 2021

“The pollinators” documentary and panel discussion

March 10, 2021

Key Issue: Public Lands Health & Protection
Activity Type: Education & Outreach (tabling, films & lectures, regional B-walks/works)
Key Partners: Pesticide Research Institute; Peter Nelson, filmmaker; the Bee Conservancy; NRDC – Pollinator Initiative

Short Description of Activity

This screening of scenes from the documentary film, The Pollinators was followed by a panel discussion alongside the film’s director, and other bee and pollinator experts. The Pollinators is a cinematic journey around the United States following migratory beekeepers and their truckloads of honeybees as they pollinate the flowers that make up part of our food supply. The Pollinators” shows the many challenges beekeepers and bees face, reveals flaws to our simplified chemically dependent agriculture system, and what it means to our food security.

Panelists will include: Peter Nelson, director/cinematographer of “The Pollinators” documentary, Susan Kegley, principal and CEO of the Pesticide Research Institute, Guillermo Fernandez, founder and executive director of The Bee Conservancy, and will be moderated by Dan Raichel, acting director of NRDC’s Pollinator Initiative.

Reflection/Evaluation

The Webinar was informative, but did not address a question I posted in the chat about not allowing honeybees (non-native) to be placed in national forests when they are not being used as crop pollinators. These bees outcompete native bees, who can starve to death, and then certain plants (some endangered) are not able to be pollinated by the honeybees or the native bees. The group never answered my question in the webinar or subsequently, which is disappointing. (This FS lands placement program is occurring in Utah, according to Mary O’Brien, which I learned in another webinar.) I do believe this calls the credibility of this group into question…