Kudos to Hochul, Adams
Thank bees by ditching needless pesticides
COURIER L 28 IFE, NOV. 26-DEC. 2, 2021
EDITORIAL
OP-ED
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announcement
last week
that she is earmarking
$1.5 billion from the American
Rescue Plan for organizations
that assist people with developmental
disabilities deserves
applause.
The funding bump comes
after years of brutal budget
cuts and austerity measures toward
nonprofi ts that work with
the developmentally disabled,
which have left most workers
doing the diffi cult work of the
industry making little more
than minimum wage.
Specifi cally, the funding
will go toward recruitment, retention
and vaccine incentive
programs for direct support
professionals working with
developmentally disabled people.
It also comes as low wages
make it hard for agencies to fi ll
staffi ng gaps, leading to dangerous
staffi ng levels and grueling
shifts for workers.
“We are very happy to fi nally
receive much-needed fi nancial
resources to better compensate
direct support professionals
who work so hard each and
every day. Sadly we have only
seen funding reductions over
the past 10 plus years,” said Janet
Koch, CRO of Life’s WORC,
which provides comprehensive
services and support to people
with intellectual disabilities
and autism and their families
in Queens, Manhattan and Nassau
counties.
The money also comes after
a recent visit from Mayor-Elect
Eric Adams to the Life’s WORC
team at the organization’s original
group home in Little Neck,
where Adams learned about
the challenges they face, particularly
relating to workforce
shortages.
The group home is named
the “Geraldo Rivera Home”
in honor of the noted journalist
who played an important
role in exposing abuses at the
Willowbrook State School on
Staten Island.
During his visit, Adams met
with residents of the home and
spoke with staff about the many
services they offer beyond their
residential group home, including
behavioral analysis services,
community habilitation,
customized employment services,
day habilitation, schoolbased
services, respite and family
support services, and trust
and fi nancial services, as well
as the programs and services
offered by its Family Center for
Autism.
Following the tour, Adams
offered to set up an advisory
committee to help address
some of these challenges at the
city level, if elected mayor.
“If we could put together a
group like this, a cross section
… and just say, ‘Eric, here are
the low hanging fruits that we
can do now, here are some of the
things that we can do later,’ and
just start putting us on a pathway,”
Adams said. “We need to
be pouring our resources into
those who have barriers.”
Hochul and Adams both deserve
high credit for considering
the needs of those unable
to properly care for themselves.
Especially as the holiday season
approaches.
BY GUILLERMO FERNANDEZ
We can thank bees for many
of the foods on our Thanksgiving
tables, from apple pie and
squash, right down to the cranberry
relish. Bees and other pollinators
provide us with one out
of every three bites of food we
eat—often, the most delicious
and nutritious ones. In fact, the
world’s 20,000 native bee species
pollinate more than 80% of its
fl owering plants, and countless
ecosystems depend on them.
But bees and other critical
pollinators currently face great
peril. New York beekeepers reported
losing more than half
of their hives in the 2019-2020
growing year, the second highest
annual losses on record. And
many of our state’s 400+ species
of native bees are also in freefall,
such as the American bumble
bee, which has lost 99% of its
population here. That’s why one
of the best ways to thank bees
this holiday may be for you to
ask your state representatives to
curb reckless uses of neonicotinoids
or “neonics”— the neurotoxic
pesticides that have put bee
populations in jeopardy. A bill
up for consideration in Albany
just after New Year’s Day—the
Birds and Bees Protection Act—
would do just that.
The stakes are no joke.
While beekeepers frantically
breed and replace honey bee
colonies in an attempt to keep
total numbers fl at, wild bees
and other pollinators vital to
food production and ecosystem
health enjoy no such help. The
sting can already be felt. Favorite
Thanksgiving pie fi llings
like apples, blueberries, and
cherries depend on bee pollination,
but are “pollinator limited”
nationwide, meaning that
farm yields are lower because
of a lack of bees, butterfl ies, and
other pollinators.
Lower yields translate to
higher prices for key healthy
foods at a time when working
families are already contending
with rising food costs. Future
trends look worse. With
wild bees disappearing, and
honey bees increasingly under
stress and susceptible to parasites
and disease, pollination
and affordable healthy food will
become more limited.
I founded the Bee Conservancy
in response to this bee
crisis. As a child, I grew up in
a low-income neighborhood in
Yonkers, just outside of New
York City, with little-to-no immediate
access to healthy food.
As part of our U.S. work, we
partner with communities
like this that face food scarcity
and other environmental challenges
across New York City
and state to bolster bee habitat
in three key ways: distributing
sustainably-sourced and locallyproduced
native bee homes designed
to maximize bee health;
establishing Bee Sanctuaries
with honey bee hives, native bee
dwellings, and strategic plantings;
and launching programs
that engage, educate, and empower
people to produce healthy
food and build green spaces.
Neonic pollution threatens
that work. When neonic use
skyrocketed fi fteen years ago,
bee populations plummeted,
leading to our present predicament.
Highly toxic to bees and
other insects and designed to
permeate plants (including
their pollen, nectar, fruit, etc.),
neonics also permeate ecosystems.
Their popularity, persistence,
and tendency to move
with rainwater has made neonics
pervasive contaminants of
soil, water, and plant life across
the state. That contamination
also raises concerns for birds,
fi sh, deer, and our health too.
Simply put, we won’t ever be
able to pull bees back from the
brink if we continue to live in a
world that’s toxic to them at every
turn.
Fortunately, science can
guide that way back. A recent
report from Cornell University
shows that the vast majority
of neonic use in New York either
doesn’t provide economic
benefi ts to users or can be replaced
with safer alternatives.
The Birds and Bees Protection
Act prohibits only those uses—
namely, neonic coatings on corn,
soybean, and wheat seeds as well
as turf and ornamental uses—
while preserving others, such
as treatments against invasive
species. While not as extensive
as the European neonic ban, the
result would be a much-needed
break for all pollinators, without
big costs or the need to switch to
more harmful pesticides.
Sometimes giving thanks requires
nothing more than saying
“thank you.” Other times, it
demands action. As you fi nish
your pumpkin pie this holiday
(which, yes, is brought to you by
bees), please remember to reach
out to your state representatives
to tell them to support the Birds
and Bees Protection Act this
upcoming year. Our bees, and
the ecosystems and creatures
(including people!) that depend
on them, will thank you.
Guillermo Fernandez is the
founder and executive director of
The Bee Conservancy based in
Manhattan..
We won’t ever be able to pull bees back from the brink if we
continue to live in a world that’s toxic to them at every turn.