For my major project, I have explored the issue of pollinator decline and how to effectively combat this issue by education and raising awareness. Pollinators, which are made up predominantly of insect species such as butterflies, moths, beetles, ants, wasps, flies and, the most prominent of all pollinators, bees. Amongst insects, other taxa such as birds, bats, rodents, reptiles as well as small marsupial and primates also contributed to pollination. A lot of current media campaigns focus solely on Bee species using them as a flagship animal to highlight awareness of these issues. This may have damaging effects though as it may be narrowing the public’s knowledge on pollination and other vital species which help to pollinate. I conducted a public survey to see how many people from different ages, places and different outdoor spaces knew what pollinators are, what species pollinate. I also asked if they knew about the issues, why they thought there was a decline and how they thought they could help.
From the results of the survey, although 75.8 % of people said they are aware of what pollinators are, 16 people gave “bees” as their answer to “what do they believe pollinators are/ includes” while 22 said insects, 16 included birds and mammals as well as insects while 12 said they didn’t know. Overall though 39 of the responses gave only bees or included bees as examples. This shows that although people believe to know what pollinators are, most of their knowledge is limited to just bees or winged insects (see results). More than anything this survey shows that bees are the most known. This can be damaging as it leaves other species out of the running for help and can undermine the importance of all pollinators as well as the need to support whole ecosystems. After determining what people considered pollinators I then looked at the issue itself asking If people were aware of the beneficial impact of pollinators as well as decline.
Looking at the results 19.7% of people said they were either unsure or not aware of the beneficial impacts of pollinators on our health, economy and agriculture. Although the figure does not seem like a negative due the majority of people see it know, it is still somewhat alarming as pollinators are responsible for more than 70 of the hundred crops that provide 90% of the world’s food as well as one in every three bites of food from almonds to berries to alfalfa that feeds dairy cows (Steve Ellis, MN and CA Beekeepers). Furthermore, 19.7% of people didn’t know that they are in decline with a fourth 12.1% only knowing part of their decline. From these results, we can see that the majority of people do know that they have an important positive impact and even more people agree that their decline is an important issue but 31.7% are even fully aware of the decline with the greater part believing the issue mostly affects bees alone.
It is definitely a positive that for the most part people are aware of pollinators and the issues they face and further results show 69.7% people already help to make a difference and reduce the decline but again a large number of people are unsure of how to help or have limited knowledge. The public also had strong ideas on what could be done to help raise awareness.
From the survey results, people agree that more publicity through print (posters, flyers, children’s books), the media/digital (newspapers, government campaigns/involvement, Websites, TV and adverts/shows), clear informative information and educational resources and lastly encouragement to the garden would be beneficial to raise awareness. I have taken all of their information and the research done previously in my proposal to develop my outcome artefact.
Full Results:
Natalie Rose 