Serbian biologist disputes UNESCO bee campaign supported by Angelina Jolie

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A Serbian biologist disputed the Women For Bees campaign launched by UNESCO and National Geographic, saying its message was wrong because it advocates the preservation of just one type of bee.

The campaign, supported by actress Angelina Jolie, was launched to build 2,500 bee hives and restock 125 million bees by 2025 but Belgrade biologist Jovana Bila Dubaic says the message it sends is wrong because its goal is to save honey bees which, she warned, could jeopardize other types of bees which are hugely important because they are the ones that spread pollen from plant to plant. She said that there are 850 types of bees in Serbia, only one of which is the honey bee. “Unfortunately, bees that are bred, honey bees could suppress all other types of bees,” she told the Zadovoljna.rs portal.

Bila Dubaic said that the UNESCO campaign plans to train 50 women as beekeepers, providing them with 2,500 hives. “To make things even worse, they will be placed in 25 UNESCO biospheres across the world. I don’t understand how experts in those organizations could have come up with something as stupid as this!… This is not Angelina Jolie’s fault. The whole thing has been set up wrong. People will see Angelina with honey bees and think they can change things by becoming bee keepers. That is negative in the long run,” she said.

She said that the campaign advocates protection for the one type of bee that is not endangered. Bila Dubaic warned that the campaign will encourage a million more people to become beekeepers thinking they can save the bees. “That is far from the truth, the truth is that this will cause a drop in the numbers of other types of bees,” she said.