Today colleagues and I published a paper that brings together years of thinking and discussion about how to provide environmental managers access to the best available scientific evidence (Dicks et al. 2014). The mainstay of our approach is a ‘4S’ hierarchy.
The newly reformed European Common Agricultural Policy includes compulsory greening measures, linked to the direct farm subsidies rather than being voluntary.
This should have been a good change, further protecting farmed ecosystems across Europe and the important services they provide. Our analysis, published today in Science, explains why it is not.
The National Pollinators Strategy for England came out yesterday for consultation. In it, the Government outlines what it will do to help pollinators over the next 10 years.
Essentially it boils down to three things that are new:
• Provide targeted Government guidance on how to help pollinators
• Fund research to start filling in some glaring knowledge gaps
• Implement a new pollinator monitoring scheme from 2016.
Pollinator decline is a complex challenge. There are many interacting threats, differing patterns of decline, and no obvious single solution. But here are FOUR actions for pollinators that we can all agree on.
The Welsh Government has published its draft Action Plan for Pollinators. This is a brilliant initiative and one that I really hope other Governments will emulate. Here is my view on its best points and areas for improvement.
Summary
Yesterday (26 March 2013), Defra published its field research on the effects of neonicotinoids on bumblebee colonies (Thompson et al 2013). Here is my understanding of the results.