Varroa Mite incursion

Over the past few days we have had the devastating news that the Varroa Mite has been found in our area and we are now in an emergency surveillance zone in an attempt to halt the spread of this horrid pest. We have 8 hives here at home and another 6 belonging to a friend. This surveillance zone means we will be unable to take any honey from our hives for at least 6 months, and that's the best outcome. If the mite is found to have spread we may be forced to have our bees euthanised, I am heartbroken at just the thought. 

An eradication zone of 10 kms has been set up around the hives were the mite was first found and all bees and hives within this zone have been, or are in the process of being, destroyed. My thoughts are with these beekeepers, how absolutely awful for them. One beekeeping business that I know of will lose all 90 of their hives, and effectively their entire business has now been wiped out.

Fingers crossed it has been picked up early enough for us to get on top of the outbreak before it wipes out any more bees. Bees are an essential part of the local biodiversity, even if they are an introduced species.

x

R

Single-Use Plastic Ban

Today in NSW a law has kicked in banning the use of some single-use plastics, and about time too, NSW is the last of Australia’s states and territories to do so (remember the old car registration plates - NSW The Premier State, yeah, now I know why we don’t see them anymore). Now obviously the ‘some’ means the law does not go far enough and that means there are loopholes. And the plastic bag is a perfect example of the sometimes ineffectual laws we are beholden to, the old grey or white thin ones we used to get at the supermarket (that are banned from today) were replaced by thicker ones that aren’t being banned. How do you think that conversation went down? “Let’s ban plastic bags, but not really ban them, let’s just get rid of the thins ones and replace them with thick ones that take even longer to break down”. And those ones available in the fruit in veg section? Yep, still in use. Seriously, sometimes I think our politicians think we are idiots.

In 2021 a survey was conducted of over 20 000 people across 28 countries and it found an average of almost 9 out of 10 people believe it is important to have a global treaty to combat plastic pollution. So in March this year the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to create a global treaty with the goal of ending plastic pollution. This means the whole life cycle of plastic will be addressed, from it’s manufacture to transport, consumption and disposal. But this treaty is not expected to be ready for ratification by the UN until 2024. And then the actual work will begin, it won’t all happen overnight so initiatives such as the flimsy one coming into force today are still required (and can we have some more please?).

I’ll be starting a series of posts on my much neglected blog about sustainability and the steps we can take to help achieve it because it’s a passion of mine. I started my Diploma of Sustainable Living with the intent of using it for my own knowledge but by the end of it I realised I have an obligation to share what I learned with everyone. It will contain a bit of information on lots of different topics and more importantly some actions we can take to make life a little more sustainable on this magnificent planet of ours. I hope  you’ll join me.

x

R