Bungay Greens
Annette Abbott
Dr Annette Abbott has lived in the Saints since 1984, and until her recent retirement, was a NHS doctor in Halesworth working to improve people’s health and lives. Annette’s husband Anthony was for many years a well-known Bungay accountant and her three children all went to Bungay High, and now have children of their own. Like many of her peers, Annette recently went back to work to help with the huge national Covid-19 vaccination effort. Annette was previously also a long-serving Parish Councillor, during which time she helped lead an extensive tree-planting initiative, and continues to campaign to improve quality of life in her local community.
Annette is a supporter of RSPB Minsmere, Suffolk Wildlife Trust and the World Land Trust, and is keen to promote new ideas around regenerative farming, which she believes offers a better future for both farmers, consumers, and our precious wildlife.
She is a keen advocate of renewable energy and a
longstanding campaigner on climate change.
She is passionate about a wide range of local issues, and she believes that by working together, a new wave of Green councillors can make a huge
difference to our community and our country.
Dr Annette Abbott has been passionate about the environment and community for a long time. Here she is planting trees with fellow parish councillors and Christine Pinsent from Suffolk Wildlife Trust in 1987/8 in the Saints.
The Bungay Green Party
The Bungay Green party group covers a wide area from Bungay itself, to Sotterley and Ellough in
the east, across The Saints villages to Homersfield and Flixton in the west.
Although there is a
long history of green action in Bungay, the group has recently been revived with an influx of new
members, of many different shades of green. Until the lockdown we were meeting for monthly
'green drinks' in the Green Dragon pub and we hope to be able to resume that in 2021.
Our current
campaigns include supporting local high-quality food producers, efforts to clean up the River
Waveney, as well as promoting issues that matter to Bungay town such as parking provision, a
new skate park and more cycling provision. !
You are very welcome to join us.
To find out more please email toby.hammond@gmail.com
Bungay news
Fear for bees as sugar beet pesticides ban is lifted
A major new threat to bees and other plant pollinators has emerged with the lifting of the ban on a dangerous pesticide used on sugar beet crops - just as Suffolk County Council rolls out a hard won Biodiversity campaign to protect our local wildlife.
Last December, leading Green councillor
Elfrede Brambley-Crawshaw convinced all political parties at Suffolk County Council to support her landmark Biodiversity motion, designed to get Suffolk County Council to
develop and embrace biodiverse land
management strategies.
But even as this is being enacted by the
council, Environment Secretary George Eustice sanctioned the emergency use of previously banned Thiamethoxam, following lobbying by the sugar industry and the NFU.
Thiamethoxam is a dangerous neonicotinoid pesticide banned EU-wide in 2018 because of devastating effects on bees and other pollinators, so dangerous that then Environment Minister Michael Gove said, “the weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our £100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood. We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.”
However, according to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), sugar beet yields for this crop widely grown in the Waveney Valley, were estimated down around 25% in 2020 compared to previous years, and many are pointing the finger at a virus carried by aphids.
Saints villages resident and Green Suffolk County Council candidate Annette Abbott is outraged. “It is beyond any scientific doubt that neonics devastate our wildlife. They not only wipe out bees, but a wide variety of insects which birds and other animals in the food chain depend on. Only 5% of the chemical protects the sugar beet, the rest ends up in our soils and ultimately in the River Waveney where it causes further havoc with freshwater life,” she said.
John Sanderson, who farms in South
Elmham and grew 16 hectares of sugar beet this year said: “We stopped using neonic-treated sugar beet seeds many years back, when we realised the damage it was causing. We’ve actually found our beet yields are far more affected by recent droughts than by the virus yellows disease.”
“Insect populations have crashed - butterfly numbers have halved since the 1970s, for example. These toxic chemicals are being used to grow more sugar for use in processed foods. It’s utter madness and has to stop,”
Annette Abbott said.
Meanwhile, a legal challenge is being
threatened by the Wildlife Trust.
Join the campaign at
https://wildlifetrusts.org
Latest Leaflets
Waveney GreenView Spring 2021
for Beccles, Bungay, Halesworth and surrounding villages
For a fabulous archive of all that the Greens have done since 2010. click
Very impressive.