Volcano chaos

Nimia Manquian and Miguel Meira, Universidad Austral de Chile

Keywords: South America; Chile; honey bee; income generation

We are concerned about the social and economical impact following the eruption of the Chaitén volcano in Chilean Patagonia in May 2008, and still erupting now in February 2009. The town is 10 km from the volcano crater, but many beekeepers had to leave their homes and sources of income. Upon their return, most found that because of the ash that covered the area they had lost everything: house, farm and hives.

The local community had been working closely with the Animal Health Agency, Ministry of Agriculture and Universidad Austral de Chile. This partnership was aiming to improve beekeeping in the region and to develop a survey focused on honey bee diseases, honey quality and giving technical training to local beekeepers. However after the volcano erupted new priorities arose in helping the community to restart working and living in their homeland. A social, environmental and economic assessment to resettle beekeeping is high priority.

Considering this new challenge we decided to contact BD. We hope we can work together and need your assistance in helping our

communities recover from the consequences of this devastating event.