The Inner City As Nature Sanctuary! Have you ever heard of a nature sanctuary in a city? If you havent, come and join us on 4th April 2014, at the BeeCare Amsterdam Symposium! Specialist from a diverse knowledge pool of disciplines will highlight the merits, drawbacks and obstructions on transforming an inner city neighbourhood into a nature sanctuary. The symposium is meant to engage policy makers, scientists, bee activists, housing corporations and local residents into a fruitful discussion. Keynote speakers are: Jolanda Maas, Sociologist, Vrije University, Amsterdam Jeroen v. d. Sluijs, Environmental Scientist, Utrecht University Remco Daalder, Urban Ecologist, PlanAmsterdam (DRO Amsterdam) Tetje Falentijn, Landschap Noord-Holland (Moderator) Industries and scientific institutions have yet failed to implement working remedies to counteract the CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) of the honeybees that has accelerated worldwide over the last ten years. However, independent scientific research confirms that nowadays, inner city centres provide a far better infrastructure for the survival of pollinators when compared to the countryside. The causes for these changes are a combination of diverse reasons, ranging from monoculture by the farming communities to surface water pollution. These observations have triggered the BeeCare Amsterdam project, which aims with a practise-based research to establish a micro-climate for pollinators by transforming an inner city neighbourhood, the Staatsliedenbuurt, into an official bee-protection-zone or Bee Sanctuary. A Bee Sanctuary is a safe haven for bees, where a maximum on hospitality is provided. Maximum hospitality goes beyond a sustainable food supply throughout the seasons, strategic arranged nesting places for the solitary bees and the diminishing of pesticide use such as Neonicotinoids, it also calls for sensible honeybee-keeping without pharmaceutical treatment to fight the Varroa mite and awareness campaigns for local residents with the formula Whats good for the bees is also good for the people! BeeCare Amsterdam is providing simple handles for the local residents to create a greener neighbourhood environment that elevates social cohesion, has a positive impact on peoples health, potentially reduces crime rates and eventually should become self-propelling. What keeps us away from creating a framework of attributes that leads to an official Bee Sanctuary? The goal of the symposium is to launch steps in establishing a certified hallmark. This certificate is officially not in existence yet, however so were potential nature reserves on the planet in the 1940s. This changed with the realization that if one does not save a particular piece of environment it will lead to the distraction of biodiversity. This novel Amsterdam-based case study will conclude in a publication to describe the encountered bottlenecks and a detailed action plan on their remedies. It is meant for local, national and international dispersion to stimulate transforming other European inner-city neighbourhoods into ecological hotspots. As Maurice Maeterlinck wrote in The Life of the Bee (1901) if the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years of life left. Without bees means without food - as about a third of the worlds food supply depends on bees. BeeCare Amsterdam Symposium 2014 The Inner City As Nature Sanctuary! Location: Zaal 100, De Wittenstraat 100, 1052 BA Amsterdam Date: Friday, 4 April 2014, Start 19:00 [in Dutch & Free Entry] Please reserve: [email protected]
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 11:33:32 +0000