In northeast Colombia, police guard warehouses stacked excessive with confiscated timber with a noble new future: transformation into houses for bees beleaguered by pesticides and local weather change.
The illegally harvested wooden is utilized in northern Colombia’s Santander division for its “Timber Returns Dwelling” initiative, which has been constructing hives since 2021 to deal with the little pollinators so vital to human survival.
Thus far, the venture has seen about 200 cubic meters (7,060 cubic toes) of wooden remodeled into 1,000 bee hives, with one other 10,000 deliberate for the following section, in keeping with the Santander environmental authority.
Beforehand, confiscated timber was changed into sawdust and donated to municipalities for initiatives, or typically simply left to rot.
Now it’s being repurposed to assist tackle the “extraordinarily major problem” of doable bee extinction, mentioned biologist German Perilla, director of the Honey Bee Affect Basis.
About three-quarters of crops producing fruits or seeds for human consumption rely on pollination. Nonetheless, the United Nations has warned that 40 p.c of invertebrate pollinators – significantly bees and butterflies – threat international extinction.
“The principle risk is that we’ll run out of timber and there will likely be no flowers as a result of, with out flowers, there are not any bees; with out bees, there are not any people, and we are going to run out of meals,” mentioned beekeeper Maria Acevedo, one of many beneficiaries of the venture.
In 2023 alone, she mentioned, she misplaced greater than half of her hives. She blames pesticides used within the close by manufacturing of crops reminiscent of espresso.