Campaigns

our major campaigns at the moment are Climate Change, Women Reaching Women (looking at the disproportionate impact of climate change on women), No More Violence against Women, and Care Not Custody (calling for an end to inappropriate detention of people with mental health problems). If you are interested in what the WI is doing about these, or in what the WI recommends you can do locally, then let me know, I have the paperwork, or look at the WI website. If you would like to co ordinate our WI s local response to any campaign, then please speak to any committee member. 

SOS for honey bees

The decline of honey bees represents a major loss in biodiversity, as honey bees are not only responsible for producing honey, but play a vital role in pollinating plants for food and other crops. Approximately a third of our human diet is directly dependent on bees, making them central to our existence.

In the natural environment, bees are also responsible for pollinating around 90% of the wild plants which produce seeds and fruits on which birds and wild animals depend, thus making them even more central to our world's existence.

Currently, honey bees are coming under threat from pests and diseases for which treatments are not fully understood or are ineffective. Many bee keepers have experienced the complete destruction of their hives from such diseases, whilst the UK is losing its bee population at around 30% a year (up from just 6% in 2003). The UK has 250 species of bees, three of which have already become nationally extinct.

The Ripon Belles are actively supporting these efforts by planting and maintaining our local WI garden in the centre of Ripon.