The European Commission held a public consultation to collect views on the implementation of the EU Pollinators Initiative and gather suggestions on how to strengthen the current framework on wild pollinators to meet its long-term objective to reverse the decline of pollinators by 2030. The Safeguard project had the opportunity to submit its opinion.
The pollinators of Europe are facing many challenges. Because of their important role in certain ecosystems, this threatens the health of the environment and the many services that it provides for human survival. Furthermore, many of the crops on which we rely for food and other resources are threatened by the decline of our pollinators. As a result of this deterioration, in mid-2018, the European Commission produced a strategy, the EU Pollinators Initiative, to enable Member States to tackle this urgent conservation issue.
The EU Horizon-2020 funded project Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry, and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe’s capacity to reverse the losses of wild pollinators. Safeguard will significantly expand current assessments of the status and trends of European wild pollinators including bees, butterflies, flies, and other pollinating insects. Building on the extensive work on pollinator conservation and inputs from pollinator experts within the project, Safeguard’s submission to the public consultation put forward recommendations to the Commission.
The key recommendations for each of the three key pillars of the current EU Pollinator Initiative are:
1. Improving our knowledge on pollinator decline, its causes, and consequences
2. Tackling the causes of pollinator decline
3. Raising awareness on pollinator decline, engaging society and promoting collaborations
For more details, please consult the submission to the public consultation .