Our purpose is to conserve, and improve prospects for the UK’s pollinators
How can we do this?
BUILD spaces for pollinators to thrive by working with community groups, organisations and businesses. Each space will be different and cater to the specific environment it lives within, to ensure longevity of these gardens and the wildlife they support. We will plant herbs, shrubs and trees and restore biodiversity as much as possible, with a special focus on pollinators. We hope these will be spaces that both people enjoy, and pollinators benefit from.
EDUCATE the public on the environmental importance of pollinator diversity, and how we can all help protect them. This will include running education programmes with schools on the life cycle of a range of pollinators, and the importance of pollination. These will be interactive and will run throughout the school year. We will run courses on how to create your own wildflower garden.
ENGAGE the government to help develop strategies to protect our wildlife and guarantee a future for us all. We will also work with corporates to encourage better use of their land.
SUPPORT citizen science and scientific research around the protection of the environment. Not only will we donate to this research, but we will help promote and implement its findings
What are pollinators and why are they important?
A pollinator is any animal or agent that moves pollen to a plant and so allows fertilisation. The process of fertilisation enables plants to reproduce by developing seed. Seed is often associated with a plant’s fruit, which plants use to attract animals as a means to disperse their seed. Some of the most effective pollinators include bumblebees, solitary bees, wasps, honeybees, flies, hoverflies, moths, butterflies, and some beetles.
Did you know:
- Pollinators facilitate reproduction in 90% of the world’s flowering plants.
- Without pollinators, the diversity of fresh, nutrient-rich produce would dramatically decline. We would essentially become much more dependent upon staple crops such as cereals, roots and tubers and a limited range of fruit and vegetables. There would also be no chocolate.
Our reliance on pollinators is likely to increase. As economies develop, diets tend to shift from staple crops (which typically have low, or no dependency on pollinators) towards being based on a more diverse mix of foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and other foods which are often heavily reliant on pollinators.
So, why are pollinators in decline?
Loss of Habitat – Pollinators rely on a range of habitat types to breed, nest and forage. Due to the expansion of urban areas, deforestation and loss of wildflower habitat, we are losing many of the spaces pollinators need to survive.
Pesticides – Herbicides can remove potential food plants and prey species for pollinators. Pesticide residue can be picked up by foraging pollinators and taken back to the nest/colony, which can have significant impacts on survivorship for the entire group. Pesticides also bioaccumulate in the ecosystem, negtatively impacting species higher in the food chain (including ourselves).
Climate change – As we have seen in recent years, climate change is having a profound effect on our world and the life it supports. Broadly speaking, its effect on rapidly altering earth’s environmental conditions is resulting in wide spread declines in biodiversity as species are unable to adapt quickly enough.
RePollinate aims to alleviate the pressures on pollinators in the UK as much as possible through direct action