Thanks to XR Sheffield for the photos.
On Saturday, September 9th members of Sheffield Extinction Rebellion dressed as bees and visited the Winter Gardens, Peace Gardens and Sheffield Town Hall. The Queen Bee, Her Royal Honeyness Queen Beeatrice, made a moving speech that was translated into English by the Bee Whizzperer.
In the speech, the Queen highlighted how flying insects have declined by 60% in the last 20 years. She firmly put the blame for this on humans, who “ keep destroying our sources of food, spraying us and our food with poisons, like insecticides, weed killers and pesticides.” She was particularly damning of Sheffield City Council saying “In Sheffield, it is not just householders that try to exterminate us. Sheffield City Council are constantly spraying our streets, housing estates, parks, playgrounds and cemeteries with Glyphosate. Even though they have declared a Nature Emergency, they are still trying to exterminate us.”
The Queen urged Sheffielders to take action on 3 fronts.
1. If you have a garden, stop using pesticides, herbicides and other nasty chemicals. Go organic and work with nature rather than against it.
2. When you go shopping at a supermarket or a Garden Centre, if they are selling this stuff that kills us please please ask the manager to take it off the shelves.
3. Write to your Councillor and ask them to stop spraying Glyphosate. They could leave many of the wildflowers for us to feed on, and if they have to be removed, they can be pulled up with hand tools or use one of the many other weed control measures.
The worker bees serenaded the Queen with songs specially written for the occasion.
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