To bee or not to bee

Pollinators face many pressures which have led to declines in numbers, and a reduction in the diversity of species to be found across the country. If pollinators go into serious decline this could have a significant impact on agriculture and on the wider landscape. The LNP has therefore welcomed the opportunity to support Buglife – the invertebrate conservation trust – with their ‘B-Lines’ project in the Lowland Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire area.

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Ultimately, the initiative aims to develop a UK-wide network, made up of wildflower-rich areas (the so-called ‘B-Lines’) to help valuable insect pollinators such as bumblebees, hoverflies and butterflies. You can view the national B-lines map here.

Locally, over the last few months, Buglife has been working with conservation and local authority partners to map a priority B-Lines network for Nottinghamshire. This mapping is part of a wider project, which with support from Anglian Water is helping to roll out the B-Lines initiative across the entire East of England.

The B-Lines provide a UK-wide framework for targeting work for pollinators, in particular promoting the restoration and expansion of existing wildflower-rich habitats and the creation of stepping stones of habitat between them. Connecting suitable habitats for pollinators is crucial to their survival especially as climate change means they may need to disperse across large distances to find suitable climactic conditions.

Buglife hopes to encourage all conservation partners, local authorities, farmers and land owners to enhance and create wildflower-rich habitats along the B-Lines, helping to make the region more pollinator-friendly. However everyone can play a part and Buglife would like to involve schools, villages, community groups and businesses within the B-Lines in taking action for insect pollinators.

Buglife is interested to hear from organisations with ideas or projects which can help develop the B-Lines network. And you can help Buglife to create the B-Lines by adding your own wildflower work to their interactive B-Lines map (http://www.buglife.org.uk/b-lines).