It’s been less than two months since Burt Shavitz, nature-lover, beekeeper and co-founder of Burt’s Bees
died, at the age of 80. And even though Burt sold the company years ago to Roxanne Quimby, who in turn
sold it to the Clorox Co. for a cool $925 million, Burt is probably rolling over in his grave to see his beloved company supporting an expensive, glossy, public relations campaign, paid for by Bayer CropScience, and aimed at obfuscating the fact that Bayer is one of the world’s most prolific killer of bees.
How could that “bee,” you ask?
Burt’s Bees is one of the companies signed on to the Pollinator Partnership, an organization that on the surface appears very concerned about the plight of honeybees. In fact, the Pollinator Partnership is a corporate creation whose primary purpose it is to shift the blame for Colony Collapse Disorder away from the real cause: Bayer’s (and other companies’) neonicotinoid pesticides. And right there on the Pollinator Partnership’s board of directors is Craig Stevenson, vice president and general manager of the Clorox Company, who is also responsible for the Burt’s Bees product line.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Burt’s Bees: Stop Consorting with the Bee Killers!As Friends of the Earth revealed in its “Follow the Honey”
report, companies like Bayer have engaged fancy public relations firms to help spin an alternative story about what’s killing the bees. These companies, whose profits depend on massive sales of neonicotinoid poisons, don’t like the conclusion most scientists have arrived at—that neonicotinoids are largely
responsible for the mass die-off of the honeybee.
At the core of Bayer’s PR strategy are
Bayer Bee Care Centers, touted as centers “for scientific exchange and communication, inviting discussions and joint projects with external partners.”
But Bayer is also a key player in the Pollinator Partnership, which is nothing more than a collection of corporations intent on protecting their profits, especially those derived from sales of bee-killing pesticides. The Pollinator Partnership says its mission is to “promote the health of pollinators [that are] critical to food and ecosystems through conservation, education, and research.”
On paper, that looks like a smart idea, especially given the public’s intense and widespread interest in protecting bees and other pollinators. But with corporate sponsors like Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta (which make up nearly the entire supply chain of neonicotinoids, currently representing
25 percent of the global market for pesticides), the Pollinator Partnership’s true motivation is highly suspect.
Or not. In fact, if you read
this letter from the Pollinator Partnership, the group’s mission becomes much more clear: defend, deny, deflect.
Neonicotinoids come with a bee hazard statement on the label as they have been determined to have the potential to harm bees; but the question is, to what extent are these substances alone responsible for CCD?
The letter goes on to defend neonicotinoids “as a response to and as a replacement for previous chemicals that had proven risks associated with bee kills and human health concerns.”
In the letter, Executive Director Laurie Davies Adams also denies that neonics are the primary cause of CCD, and points instead to changing weather patterns, varroa mites and other threats to bees, totally overlooking the fact that neonics, a systemic pesticide, weaken the immune system of bees, making them more vulnerable to these other threats.
It’s a shame that Clorox now owns, and has corrupted the product—a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by consumers who are
asking to “change back” Burt’s Bees.
It’s an even bigger shame that Burt’s Bees is now supporting the very company that is killing off the bees.
