Save the Bees! - ¡Salvemos las abejas!

    Surely you will have heard that bees are disappearing and nobody knew why. Recent studies have confirmed that the cause are all the poisons used in agriculture. Pesticides can be lethal for bees, and in low doses they can cause a lot of disorders as the loss of memory. This makes us think that pesticides could be also the cause of Alzheimer disease in humans, the same way they are one of the causes of Parkinson Syndrome.

    Why are bees so important? Bees are responsible for the pollinating of plants, flowers, and vegetables. Without bees we won't have the sweet healthy honey, and we won't have fruit and vegetables to eat. Bees are in danger, agriculture is in danger, we humans are in danger. And that's not all, if the bee that survives pesticides suffers from memory loss ... it doesn't know how to return to the hive, becomes disoriented and can not go back home to make honey and wax, products so needed in our food and in our home.

What is happening to bees should be taking into account as part of a scientific essay and like a prove that pesticides can be the cause of so many unexplainable neurological diseases happening in humans. Bees in their natural environment and the use of pesticides are like a live laboratory to watch what could happen to humans.

    What can we do? It's simple. Don't use pesticides on agriculture, don't use pesticides in parks and gardens, there are healthy alternatives for it, buy and eat organic fruit and vegetables.

    The companies of pesticides have a high influence on politicians and they move a lot of money. However the battle is not lost, there is much we can do. No matter if you are a politician, no matter if you are involved in agriculture, or if you are just someone concerned with human health and the health of each and every living being in Nature. Just "Be the change you wanna see in the world". 

     Together we can Save the Bees!

   
     Seguramente habréis oído que las abejas están desapareciendo y que nadie sabía por qué. Estudios recientes han confirmado que la causa son todos esos venenos utilizados en la agricultura. Los pesticidas pueden ser letales para las abejas, y en dosis bajas pueden causar muchos trastornos como la pérdida de memoria. Ésto nos hace pensar que los pesticidas podrían ser también la causa de la enfermedad de Alzheimer en los seres humanos, de la misma manera que son una de las causas del síndrome de Parkinson.
    ¿Por qué son tan importantes las abejas? Las abejas son responsables de la polinización de las plantas, flores y verduras. Sin abejas, no tendremos la tan dulce y saludable miel, y no vamos a tener frutas y verduras para comer. Las abejas están en peligro, la agricultura está en peligro, los seres humanos están en peligro. Y eso no es todo, si la abeja que sobrevive a los pesticidas y plaguicidas sufre pérdida de memoria... no sabe cómo regresar a la colmena, se desorienta y no puede volver a casa para elaborar la miel y la cera, productos tan necesarios en nuestra alimentación y en nuestro hogar.
    Lo que está pasando con las abejas debería tomarse en cuenta como parte de un ensayo científico y como prueba de que los pesticidas pueden ser la causa de muchas enfermedades neurológicas inexplicables que ocurren en los seres humanos. Las abejas en su medio natural y el uso si los pesticidas son como un laboratorio vivo para ver lo que podría pasar a los humanos.

    ¿Qué podemos hacer? Es muy sencillo. No utilizar pesticidas en la agricultura, no utilizar pesticidas en los parques y jardines, hay alternativas saludables para ello, comprar y comer frutas y verduras ecológicas.

    Las empresas de pesticidas tienen una gran influencia sobre los políticos y  mueven mucho dinero. Sin embargo, la batalla no está perdida, se puede hacer mucho. No importa si eres político, no importa si estás involucrado en la agricultura, o si eres sólo una persona preocupada por la salud humana y la salud de todos y cada uno de los seres vivos de la naturaleza. Simplemente "Sé el cambio que quieres ver en el mundo".

    ¡Juntos podemos Salvar las Abejas!

* More info / Más info :

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/european-agriculture-at-risk-time-to-ban-bee-/blog/44656/
http://www.greenpeace.org/espana/es/Trabajamos-en/Transgenicos/Abejas/

We are what we eat

   A blog post published by other blogger saying was to collaborate with a CSA farm, made me first wonder: "CSA?, What's CSA?, What does it mean?. After researching a bit in the internet I recalled a magazine I saw last year about luxory travels around the world. A report called my attention, it was about farms in the USA growing organic vegetables and getting fresh organic milk and eggs from the animals they care for. A picture was really remarkable: a long table with an elegant table cloth, nice dishes and cups stood just in the middle of the crops, as the one you could find at the best restaurant. I thought it was fascinating people went to the country to eat a delicious meal cooked with the own vegetables they had just picked up. It would be wonderful there was something like that here in Spain, I said to myself.

   According to the Wikipedia: A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. CSA’s focus is usually on a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables and fruit in a vegetable box scheme, sometimes dairy products and meat. The term CSA is mostly used in the USA, but a variety of similar production and economic sub-systems are in use worldwide.

   One of the many advantages are they usually use organic or biodynamic farming methods, and CSA members are also more actively involved in the growing and distribution process, through shared newsletters and recipes, farm visits, farm work-days, advance purchases of shares, and picking up their shares.

   In Spain, the name used por something very similar to CSA is Cooperativas de consumo ecológico: members of the association from a same district or city go personally to a local or little shop where they pick up and pay for the stuff they had previously ordered to the farmers. In Spain, the first ecologic cooperative was created in Cataluña in 1993, nowadays there are more than forty in the same region. Delivery of vegetables and fruit in a vegetable box scheme is beginning to come into fashion in Cataluña too, many high standing restaurants choose this option to cook expensive dishes where original taste is essential.

   I am really concerned about health in food, we are what we eat as once someone said. However, most fruit and vegetables we buy for our daily consume are full of pesticides and other products dangerous for our health. I would like one day when we went to the supermarket, we hadn't to wonder: is that ecological?, are those organic vegetables?, are those free-range eggs?

   The current situation in Spain is the following: the spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Food promotes shy campaigns inviting us to consume organic products, which you can find only in small amounts in big commercial centers and at high price. Most of people tries to survive by buying store brand products (Private Label Manufacturers), which are not precisely ecological.

   How the situation should be: the idea of store brands (marcas blancas) is not bad, provided you could find a totally ecological store brand; the second thing is you could go to any district market and buy easily fresh organic vegs and fruit, without having to subscribe to any cooperative.

   Anyway, I encourage everybody who has a terrace or balcony, though you live in an urban context, to grow your own vegetables such as tomatoes, green-peppers, onions, aromatic plants... I haven't had the chance to do it yet, but according to what people who has experimented it say it's worth a lot and is pretty satisfying to eat something you have seen grew, no chemical addings, healthy and tasty. A tomato tastes to tomato and a green-pepper to green-pepper and not to plastic. Fortunately the world of urban horticulture has come into fashion in cities like Barcelona.

   We as consumers should demand health and quality on what we eat. I don't want to think about a world where the poor eat unhealthy because it's cheap and the rich eat apparently healthy beacause it's expensive. I hope healthy food is real in our global world at convenient price for everybody soon.

An Inconvenient Truth

The other day I saw the trailer of the documentary-film "An inconvenient Truth", starred by Al Gore. Well I fell to be quite aware of the importance of Environment care, but I don't think most of our politicians are.
I have the solution to save our mother Nature: The action plan must come from every town hall, by making strategic urbanistic plans convinient for Nature, and not for Tourism and a few people interests. If we act this way what will be good for nature, it will be for us (as Nature members we are), we just have to go in favour of every one.

Day of Nature

Today is the day of Environment. Nature should be the most important thing in our lives, as we belong to it. And we, living in cities, have it so forgotten... If we'd really be aware of the importance it has, by being more respectful and caring, then we'd be respectful with ourselves and so with the rest of the other human beings.

Viva the people who defend Nature !!

I've seen on tv that a singer I don't have the pleasure to know, her name is Joan Baez, is sitting on a tree to defend a farm-garden from demolition, and that other people like the actress Daryl Hannah has joined to her in her fight. I just wanna say that I'm also joining to them, from the distance, with all my heart. It was very emotional to see her with her guitar singing :" No nos moverán...".

It's a great shame what we are doing in our cities, just building and building and in the end we are destroying ourselves, as we, without Nature, are nothing. My heart is in pain every time I see that all the country, olive trees, almond trees... sorround my home have been replaced by lots of buildings, even now they are building close to, on to the little mountain in front of my home..., oh dear!.

All my support for you that defend Nature, we will win !!, I'm sure of that,

¡ NO NOS MOVERÁN !!

PEACE AND LOVE