SLU news

Hope for pollinators?

Published: 31 May 2016

A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators.

However, the assessment, a two-year study conducted and released today by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also highlights a number of ways to effectively safeguard pollinator populations.

The assessment, titled Thematic Assessment of Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production and the first ever issued by IPBES, is a groundbreaking effort to better understand and manage a critical element of the global ecosystem. It is also the first assessment of its kind that is based on the available knowledge from science and indigenous and local knowledge systems.

- The report is the first in its kind from IPBES. This knowledge based report is a milestone, and it can really be useful both globally and nationally. Several swedish scientific studies are used in the report, and Riccardo Bommarco from SLU has been involved as the expert on pollination, says Torbjörn Ebenhard, CBM, who is a member of the swedish delegation at IPBES-4 in Kuala Lumpur.

There are more than 20,000 species of wild bees alone, plus many species of butterflies, flies, moths, wasps, beetles, birds, bats and other animals that contribute to pollination. Pollinated crops include those that provide fruit, vegetables, seeds, nuts and oils. The volume of agricultural production dependent on animal pollination has increased by 300 per cent during the past 50 years.

Although most insect pollinators have not been assessed at a global level, regional and national assessments indicate high levels of threat, particularly for bees and butterflies - with often more than 40 per cent of invertebrate species threatened locally.

"The good news is that a number of steps can be taken to reduce the risks to pollinators, including practices based on indigenous and local knowledge," said Zakri Abdul Hamid, elected Founding Chair of IPBES at its first plenary meeting in 2012.

The safeguards include the promotion of sustainable agriculture, which helps to diversify the agricultural landscape and makes use of ecological processes as part of food production.