Musings: Still Talking

So five people (including me) sat down last night in front of a small group to talk about bees and pesticides — or more obliquely, the seed (GMO) companies — and nobody raised a voice or a sign or a fist.

Whew. Despite the polarization surrounding this issue, respectful, meaningful discourse is still possible.

Nothing was solved, but views, concerns and ideas were shared. Doors were opened. Most important, perhaps, was the humanizing effect, because there's been a lot of demonization on all sides.

As one wise lady told me afterward: “I think it was really good for people to see that others are just as passionate in their views as they are.”

Listening to the panelists speak — we had BASF rep Kirby Kester, Farm Bureau President Jerry Ornellas, Councilman Gary Hooser and Fern Anuenue, an environmental scientist and board member of Ohana O Kauai — I was struck anew by the complexities of our existence.

Heck, the challenges of addressing this issue alone are daunting. It involves food, water, environmental and human health, agricultural practices, jobs, land use, federal vs state vs county law and authority, the people's right to know, international corporations and local businesses, regulation and enforcement, public trust in government, the strengths and limitations of science. All peppered with a wide range of personalities and ideologies.

Or as Jimmy Trujillo, who organized the KBee event for Earth Day at KCC noted, “there are no easy answers to hard questions.”

But at least we now know we can still talk. We don't have to go straight to a fight.

Updates: The Garden Island has some good coverage today of the forum, and here is a link to an article on a study that affirms my take on things: it's not just one factor, but a "cocktail" of human-induced pressures that are contributing to the worldwide decline of pollinators:


Here, we argue that multiple anthropogenic pressures – including land-use intensification, climate change, and the spread of alien species and diseases – are primarily responsible for insect-pollinator declines. We show that a complex interplay between pressures (eg lack of food sources, dis-eases, and pesticides) and biological processes (eg species dispersal and interactions) at a range of scales (from genes to ecosystems) underpins the general decline in insect-pollinator populations. Interdisciplinary research on the nature and impacts of these interactions will be needed if human food security and ecosystem function are to be preserved.