MIRANI MP WINS SUPPORT FOR HIS “BEE FRIENDLY CAMPAIGN

State Member for Mirani, Stephen Andrew, has gained the support of Rockhampton Mayor, Tony Williams, and Livingstone Mayor, Andy Ireland, for his new ‘Bee Friendly’ Campaign.

The campaign is an initiative of Mr Andrew’s, aimed at taking urgent action to remove the highly invasive African Tulip Trees from his electorate, and help save our disappearing native bee population.

Mr Andrew said the two mayors were “very positive about the idea” in his discussions with them on the subject, with both saying they would be happy to assist with the campaign.

He said he and the ‘community action group’ he had formed, would also be approaching local businesses and asking them to sponsor the campaign. This would help offset some of the costs involved in removing as many of these noxious pests from council parks, gardens and nature strips, as possible.

African tulip trees were first introduced to Queensland from tropical Africa in the 1930s.

The trees were initially very popular because of their beautiful, red tulip-shaped flowers.

The trees proved highly invasive, however, and spread rapidly throughout the Central Queensland region, where they form dense clumps along gullies and waterways, crowding out native vegetation.

The Mirani MP said the biggest problem with the African Tulip Tree, however, was the toxic nectar produced by the trees’ flowers.

“These trees may look nice”, Mr Andrew said, “but they are a deadly threat to this region’s native stingless bee colonies”.

“Bees play a vital role as pollinators and without them most of our fruit, vegetables and crops would die”.

“With bee populations in decline across the world, we need to do everything we can to save our native pollinators”.

The Member for Mirani said that the group were also planning to plant two native, ‘Bee Friendly’, trees, for every African Tulip Tree they removed.

Mr Andrew said he is hoping all the councils in his electorate, will embrace the ‘Bee Friendly’ program and “join in the campaign to stop the decline of our precious native bee colonies”.

As a member of the Health and Environment Committee, Mr Andrew said he looked for opportunities to achieve real world beneficial results for our environment.

An essential component of fast tracking this project is to involve all community groups, informing and educating to motivate them to also support this valuable campaign,” Mr Andrew said..

The first stage in developing an eradication program is to identify the location of any trees. A map has been designed for uploading photographs and reporting the location of these trees. Please go to https:// stephenandrew.com.au/2023/02/21/bee-friendlycampaign/ and pin an African Tulip Tree for removal. To help eradicate these trees from our electorate, Stephen Andrew encourages everyone to get involved and help #ProtectNativeBees