Over the last few weeks thousands of SumOfUs members like you successfully pressured hardware giants Bunnings and Mitre 10 to pull bee-killing pesticides off their shelves across Australia and New Zealand. Now it's time to get the other major Kiwi garden centres on board. 

Across the world bees have been dying in terrifying numbers. One of the key culprits identified by scientists as contributing to these mysterious deaths is a class of pesticides known as neonics.

Even though this class of pesticides have come under bans in France and the EU and have been pulled from shelves across North America, you can still buy a common neonic called Yates Confidor in your local garden centre right here in New Zealand. 

Will you please now join us in signing the petition to tell Palmers, Kings and Oderings garden centres to stop selling neonics?

Bees are responsible for pollinating one third of the food we eat. They are critical to our food supply and must be protected.

Even at low doses, the active neurotoxin in neonic pesticides alters bees navigation systems and weakens their immune systems making them more vulnerable to the infections and disease tearing through bee populations in Europe and other parts of the world.

Thankfully, bee colony collapse hasn’t reached mass proportions in New Zealand like it has elsewhere. But we shouldn't be complacent. 

If we act now, we can help lower the risk of mass bee die-off in New Zealand. 

SumOfUs has been working to pressure corporations to take the lead in the fight against neonic pesticides. In Europe our members have kept up huge pressure on EU regulators to widen their ban on neonics. In North America, over 749,000 caring members signed a petition that forced the two biggest hardware stores, Lowes and Home Depot, to stop selling these deadly chemicals. And in Australia every major retailer has now agreed to phase out neonics like Confidor by the end of 2018. 

We know that when we work together, we can do the same in New Zealand and get Palmers, Kings and Oderings to put bees before profit and pull these harmful products. 

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