Let’s get buzzing for pollinators

Let’s get buzzing for pollinators

Niamh Phelan from IUCN Europe gave an introduction to the importance of pollinators in a simple and easy to understand way as well as updating us on the IUCN red lists, the data they are built on and the upcoming updates to keep an eye out for. This session aimed to showcase how to broach this topic with young people such as Junior Rangers, and where to get the latest science to use for presentations and other resources.

In the second session, Andrea Aracil and Sara Reverte from the EPIC programme introduced us to wild bees and hoverflies. The majority of this session focused on understanding these groups of insects and their biology. Currently there is a major effort in upskilling experts in all the member states to be able to collect data but not many activities for citizens scientists to engage with. There is definitely need for citizens and future generations to get more interested in organising events and activities to identify and record these species to have more accurate, consistent and data from across Europe.

The last session by Cristina Sevilleja from Butterfly Conservation Europe, covered butterflies and moths. She also dived into the biology to help environmental educators be more familiar with the species but also showcased many activities that citizen scientists are doing to monitor and record butterflies and moths. She suggested different activities for different levels of knowlegde and also gave some advice on timing and which apps to use to record the data. It was interesting to see the comparison of activities possible and the level of organisation across Europe with national butterfly societies organising and financing the BCE with large public support in comparison to the wild bees and hoverflies which are less well known.

Feedback

“Thank you for a great webinar! At the Nationalpark Wadden Sea Denmark we have an increased focus on insects, and I would be greatly interested in collaborating more on the subject. We are a governmental fund working within a protected area (also world heritage). We are not an authority which means that local stakeholder involvement and engagement is crucial to our work. I am very interested in projects with citzen science and ideas on how to engage locals (of all ages) in protecting our insects.”

“Excellent education! Just keep up the great work.”

Future work

We would love to highlight more efforts of youth engagement (and other citizens) on the topic of pollinators in and around Protected Areas. If you have a successful story to share with us, send us an email or fill out the form for case studies on our website. We would love to promote frontline nature conservation happening in the EUROPARC network!

The Programme

24th February – From the EU to You: The latest efforts for Pollinators

25th February – The Bees Knees: Wild Bees and Hoverflies

26th February – The Wings of Change: Butterflies and Moths

Watch the full series in the playlist below: