To mark the start of Bees’ Needs Week 2021 (July 12 – July 18), Environment Minister Rebecca Pow is calling on everyone – from individuals, farmers, gardeners, or managers of urban spaces – to take five simple actions to care for bees and other pollinators.
Bees and other pollinators are an essential part of the environment and play a crucial role in food production – they contribute the equivalent of more than £500 million a year to UK agriculture and food production, by improving crop quality and quantity – and are also vital to the wider, natural ecosystems.
Five simple actions everyone can take to help pollinators and make sure their populations are sustained are:
- Grow more flowers, shrubs and trees;
- Let your garden grow wild;
- Cut your grass less often;
- Don’t disturb insect nest and hibernation spots;
- Think carefully about whether to use pesticides.
Bees’ Needs Week 2021 will see Defra and several green organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society and Bumblebee Conservation Trust, working together to encourage everyone who can to do simple things at home, at work, and in other private and public spaces to help our precious pollinators thrive.
Pollinators are ‘vital to a healthy environment’
Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said:
“Bees and other pollinators are not just a welcome and much loved sight in our gardens, parks, villages and countryside – they are vital to a healthy environment, driving our economy and boosting biodiversity.
Everyone can help them flourish by leaving patches of garden to grow wild, growing more flowers, cutting grass less often, not disturbing insect nests, and carefully considering how we use pesticides.
“This is also one of the key messages of our recently launched ‘Plant for our Planet’ campaign – aimed at inspiring the public to support nature recovery by engaging in a variety of green activities to move us to a more sustainable future as we build back greener after the pandemic, and step up our efforts in tackling the climate crisis which is the focus of the COP26 summit,” she added.
“Actions that we can take for pollinators and biodiversity will enable us to tackle and adapt to climate change – I encourage everyone to get involved.
There are thousands of pollinator species in the UK – from wild pollinators including bumblebees and many solitary bees, moths, flies and butterflies, to honeybees.
“However, their populations are under threat from risks such as habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, pests and disease, climate change and inappropriate pesticide use.”
