Leave me the birds and the bees ... please!
Like Joni Mitchell in her song “Big Yellow Taxi,” Faraaz Abdool pleads for his beloved birds: not many will survive the onslaught of toxic chemicals used to rid backyard gardens and agri-holdings of pests. What should we be doing to protect the crops? All photos courtesy Faraaz Abdool Bees are valuable pollinators A poisoned bee lies dead after crawling around convulsing. (Dead bees have been turning up ever since a new neighbour moved in next door to us, he sprays constantly) Let’s not debate what makes a pest a pest. Instead, let’s figure out how we decide what is fit to be freely dispensed into the environment. There is a wide selection of bottles and cans available in your local plant or agro-shop – herbicides and pesticides and insecticides – which do the jobs of getting rid of weeds, “pests” and insects. First of all, do we take the time to read the labels? The sad truth is that most of us don’t, taking for granted that a sense of res...