Tring Justice & Peace Group call for Tring Town Council to Go Pesticide Free
Tring Justice & Peace Group call for Tring Town Council to go pesticide free at Tring Farmers’ Market (Apple Parade Day) on Saturday 12 October 2024.
Tring’s Own Apple Fayre has become a highlight in the Tring community calendar. Throughout the month of October there are events and activities to raise awareness of the connection between the food we eat, the seasons and our connection with nature. The whole town came together to celebrate the annual apple harvest at the Apple Parade on Saturday 12 October – and this year was bigger and better than ever with hundreds of people lining the High Street to watch the spectacle.
In order to have apples on our trees in autumn, bees and other insects have to pollinate the blossom in springtime. But sadly, the bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinators have suffered badly over the last 50 years or so. Tring is working hard to try to make things better but there is still some way to go. The good news is that because of local efforts, led by Tring’s Justice & Peace Group, the town was in 2022 awarded Bee Friendly Town status by the Bee Friendly Trust. This local voluntary group are building on this award though by doing all they can to make Tring an area where bees and other pollinators can live safely and carry out their work to continue to pollinate our flowers for fruit, vegetables and other crops.
Tring Justice & Peace Group are very encouraged to learn that Tring Town Council are making efforts to improve biodiversity on their council-owned land. They are supportive of the work of the Climate Action Working Group which is urging the council to take action within the community. Whilst this has been encouraging, they are urging them to do more. Banning pesticide use by the council, and on council allotments is an essential step in the move toward slowing the biodiversity crisis we face.
Polly Eaton from Tring’s Justice & Peace Group commented: ‘There are examples of towns and councils all over the country already going pesticide free – we want Tring, Dacorum and Hertfordshire to make this commitment too. Our whole community is so proud to be a Bee friendly Town, we want our local council to do all they can to promote biodiversity and particularly bees and other insects by saying no to pesticides.’
To take this further the Justice & Peace Group have gathered over 700 signatures on their unique hexagon petitions, and over 400 on their online petition. All these voices are calling for our local councils to ‘Say no to pesticides’. The presentation to Tring Town Council today was just the start, the next stop is Dacorum Borough Council, and then they aim to petition the County Council.