Honeybees may get all the attention, but the 386 varieties of native pollinators in Massachusetts are in trouble and need some attention, too.
Western Mass. Pollinator Networks to the rescue — with a fact-finding trip planned to Ireland. Why Ireland, you ask?
That’s because Ireland — though it has a fraction of the pollinator diversity of Massachusetts — has developed its own All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, says Peggy MacLeod, founder and director of the three-year-old Western Mass. group, who plans to travel with Tom Sullivan of a landscape design firm called Pollinators Welcome.
They plan to go to Waterford, Dublin and Kilkenny to discuss how the Irish plan, with 83 organizations, works.
Fostering the health of pollinator populations is important for agriculture because such many food plants rely on bees for fertilization of their flowers, which leads to fruits, nuts and vegetables like apples, squash and corn.
“I think the problem here is worse than a lot of organizations think it is, and a lot of plans are probably up on a shelf somewhere,” said MacLeod. “What can we learn from them to do more organizing here? We’re putting together questions from ourselves and from people who can’t go.”
Sullivan says he’s interested in talking with representatives from the different organizations about the species of plants as well as bees, flies, wasps beetles and other pollinators. I want to know if they have enough plants, and are they using mostly native plants?”
Six Hampshire and Berkshire county towns have already adopted pesticide bans aimed at slowing the decline of pollinator species. Franklin Regional Council of Governments is looking at developing what land-use planner Evan Abramson believes would be the first regional pollinator plan in this country.
A pollinator plan would look at landscape, at land-use patterns and where development and roads occur, along with farms and residential properties to piece together properties like a pollinator wildlife corridor with specific recommendations for planting and maintenance to enhance pollination.
Abramson said he hopes to find funding and potential partner environmental organizations as well as farmers and other landowners about participation. New England Wildflower Society or other organizations could also be involved in educational outreach component, he said.
Western Mass. Pollinator Networks, a nonprofit project, “is trying to educate people that there is a problem with pollinators, and they can think about landscaping and land maintenance differently, and think about gardening differently – about what are the wildlife needs,” said MacLeod. “It’s also about the reduction of pesticides.
The group has done outreach to garden centers and nurseries, she said, asking about use of pesticides. It also advocates for more ways to protect and ensure diversity of pollinators as well as promoting projects like designing a diverse pollinator garden at the new John Zon Community Center in Greenfield.
That project, which involves 14 volunteers planting 72 plant species, points to a way to enhance diversity of plant species and the pollinators they attract.
“A lot of garden centers show the same plant species in their front rows, so everybody buys those, and we’re only serving some of the (pollinator) species out there,” said MacLeod. “So we’re seeing a loss of specialized flowers that they like. Some bees only go to one kind of flower.”
Like honeybees, which face their own Colony Collapse Disorder, native pollinators face threats from pesticides — some of them present in seeds or nursery plants, so they’re unwittingly planted — or because of habitat loss and fragmentation, said Abramson. Pollination can also be hurt by climate change affecting the sequence of flowers blooming and insects emerging, or air pollution confusing scent trails pollinators depend on, or even from parasites and pathogens introduced by foreign species.
Sullivan, who gives talks and workshops for the organization and who designed the the Zon Center garden, said he hopes to also help develop similar habitat for the new Northwestern District Attorney’s office on Greenfield’s Bank Row, the planned new Greenfield public library, the Greenfield Community Garden and Greenfield Energy Park.
On the Web: www.wmassbees.org