1. Foreword

Looking back on the BEESPOKE project

Professor John Holland, Project Coordinator

The project has been a pleasure to coordinate, and I am so pleased that we have managed to deliver such a wide variety of new information and practical recommendations that can help with the conservation of pollinators in agricultural areas.

Such international projects are also highly valuable for the participants as we learn much from outside our normal spheres of influence and can use this to develop our own skills. For myself, I have been particularly intrigued by the results of the surveys which provided new insights into land managers attitudes to pollinators. The majority were unconcerned about levels of crop pollination, and this is understandable given that the high proportion of respondents that were arable farmers growing crops such as oilseed rape which is primarily wind pollinated. However, the fruit growers were also not so concerned and this may be because they use honeybees, there are still sufficient wild pollinators for their needs or because they are not monitoring levels of pollination or pollinators and so are unaware of any declines. The project has provided the tools to help monitor pollinators and pollination whilst the new predictive maps will also help identify potentially deficient areas.

However, we know that pollinators are declining as are many other types of insects and it would be prudent to implement measures now to support pollinators thereby ensuring we have sufficiently robust and diverse suite of pollinators to survive climatic fluctuations, but also as important, to support pollination of wild plants to which wild pollinators are intrinsically linked, as is the functioning of agroecosystems.

It was encouraging to see that many land managers’ motivation for supporting pollinators was for conservation. Our hope is that the policy recommendations and practical advice developed by the project will be utilized and thereby help land managers establish higher quality and effective habitats for pollinators. Our experiences in the project have shown the challenges of establishing and managing new wildflower areas and that land managers need greater flexibility and effective training alongside financial support, but without too much bureaucracy, to ensure such high-quality habitats are achieved.

Indeed, the whole agricultural landscape needs to deliver a greater abundance and diversity of flowering plants and trees if pollinators are not to decline further, and this is our key message to all land managers and policy makers.