Given the non-stop flood of political news following the election, we thought you might appreciate a break with this story on remarkable work being done to save pollinators. “‘Restoration economy’ strives to protect pollinators, create jobs,” by Alexis Marie Adams, focuses on the effort by ecologist Gary Nabhan and a team of conservationists to restore pollinator habitat and also create jobs in an economically-challenged rural area near the border of Arizona and Mexico. We published it in collaboration with Scientific American.
While much of the work on pollinators has focused on the decline of domesticated honeybees, Adams explores the broader issue of wild pollinators in the borderlands region. “This patchwork of private and public lands, which straddles the international border, harbors the highest diversity of native bees, birds and mammals anywhere in the contiguous U.S.,” she writes. But these pollinators have been threatened by monocultural farms, herbicides, urban sprawl and climate change, which has altered pollination cycles.
The area isn’t alone. “More than 40 percent of the world’s invertebrate pollinator species, particularly bees and butterflies, and some 16 percent of vertebrate pollinators, like birds and bats, face extinction,” Adams tells us. And yet they are vitally important. “Wild pollinators are twice as effective as domesticated honeybees in producing seeds and fruit on crops, including almonds, coffee, tomatoes and strawberries, according to 2013 study in Science.”
To turn things around, Nabhan helped start Borderlands Restoration. One of the group’s founders, Ronald Pulliam, told Adams: “We wanted to create what we call a ‘restoration economy’—one that doesn’t ignore the reality of the people who are struggling to make a living here. You can bring back the pollinators, you can restore the hydrological systems that support them, but it won’t last unless the people who live here really care about it.”
They smartly brought together conservation groups, the National Park Service, private landowners, and students who needed work — truly a grassroots effort. When the national picture is so troubling to so many people, we shouldn’t forget that these kinds of focused solutions at the local level hold out hope. Not only for pollinators, but for people, too.
We also wanted to mention that we’ve got something special planned for Giving Tuesday (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving). Keep an eye out for a message from us on November 29. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.