> We live in a global environment, problems are global, and need global solutions.

> Is that really so? 

I think so. Nothing wrong with looking on the bright side, but there is plenty of trouble to go around.

* * * 

Out of 25 bumblebee species in the UK, for example, two have gone extinct and eight decreased substantially in abundance since 1940, while 13 species have gone extinct in at least one European country and four across the entire region (Goulson, Lye & Darvill 2008). Other species have undergone similar declines in North America (Cameron et al. 2011; Szabo et al. 2012), and 11% of all bumblebee species world-wide are listed in a threat category on the IUCN Red list (Williams & Osborne 2009).

The importance of bumblebees for the pollination of many high-value crops has led to the commercial production and importation of over a million colonies per year in Europe, North America, South America and Asia (Velthuis & van Doorn 2006). Emergent parasites represent one of the major threats to biodiversity and spillover from introduced organisms to native species can be particularly damaging, either by introducing novel species or strains of parasite or by increasing the density of infected hosts.

In England for example, the importation licences for the non-native subspecies most commonly imported are specifically limited to parasite-free colonies, and 40–50 thousand colonies are imported annually to the UK on this basis (Natural England 2009, 2012). However, concern remains about whether bumblebee colonies being produced currently may nevertheless carry parasites, and it is also unclear whether any parasites that may be present in the hives are infectious, making the pathogen spillover risk posed currently uncertain.

The Trojan hives: pollinator pathogens, imported and distributed in bumblebee colonies
Journal of Applied Ecology 2013, 50, 1207–1215 

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