The crisis facing bees and other pollinators in the UK has caused the government to launch an “urgent” review of the country’s environmental wellness, and pledge to introduce a national pollinator strategy. Lord Rupert de Mauley, minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), noted, ‘As we all recognise, pollinators play a vital role in the security of our food supply and the quality of our natural environment. In safeguarding their future, we can secure our own.’
In April, UK ministers opposed the European Union’s suspension of the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides linked to serious harm bees, albeit with the plan going ahead anyway. Friends of the Earth’s executive director Andy Atkins commented, ‘We’re delighted that enormous pressure for a bee action plan from scientists, businesses and the public has stung the government into action. The minister’s plan of action must be in place when bees emerge from hibernation next spring: we can’t afford to gamble any longer with our food, countryside and economy.’
According to Lynne Dicks, an expert on wild pollinators at the University of Cambridge, ‘All pollinators, not just bees but also many flies, butterflies, moths, wasps and beetles, rely on flowers, but the number of flowers in the countryside declined calamitously in the 20th century: we lost 97% of our flower-rich meadows between 1930 and 1984…Through enhancing the yield of many high value crops, pollination is worth between £430m and £510m to the UK economy, but amazingly, pollination doesn’t seem to be considered as an important agricultural input.’ She added, ‘At the moment, it is almost impossible for us to know whether actions to help bees and flies are having an effect, because we have no long-term monitoring.’
As it stands, we have lost nearly all of the UK’s wild honey bees, and some species of bumblebee have been lost altogether. De Mauley said, ‘We know there are gaps in the evidence. That is why I am launching an urgent and comprehensive review of current policy, evidence and civil society action on pollinators to identify what needs to be done to integrate and step up our approach. This urgent review will form the basis of a national pollinator strategy, which will bring together all the pollinator-friendly initiatives already underway and provide an umbrella for new action.’
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