Students in Wild Friends, an award-winning civics education program at the UNM School of Law, advocated to the New Mexico Senate on behalf of bees.

They shared the vital work that bees do:

• Bees pollinate one-third of the food that we eat, including apples, squash, alfalfa, and other crops vital to New Mexico’s economy
• Native and commercial bee populations are declining due to disease, habitat loss and the use of pesticides
• Without bees, the estimated cost of having people pollinate crops would be approximately fifteen billion dollars annually in the U.S.
• Bees are important to NM as pollinators of crops and as a vital part of our ecosystem

Wild Friends were so successful with the Senate that NM Governor Susanna Martinez proclaimed June 15, 2016 as Bee Aware Day and that, “Throughout the State of New Mexico, all New Mexicans be educated about the importance of bees to our state.”