Actions for boosting pollination in rural and urban areas

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BACKGROUND

Over 40% of invertebrate pollinators are at risk of extinction, mostly bees and butterflies. Loss of pollinating insects is particularly alarming because of the effects on plant reproduction. Nearly four out of five crops and wild plants depend on animal pollination, often provided by wild, unmanaged pollinator communities. Pollinator decline is thus expected to limit plant reproduction, ultimately affecting both natural ecosystems and crop production, threatening food security for humans and wildlife as well as global economic stability. Pollinator populations are negatively affected by the increasing use of agrochemicals, parasites and diseases, local and global environmental degradation and by the loss of natural and semi-natural habitats. The destruction and fragmentation of these habitats and the consequent reduction in wildflowers cause the loss of nectar and pollen as well as breeding, nesting and overwintering habitats for pollinators, triggering population declines and subdivision. Insect visitation, richness and stability increase with decreasing distance from natural or semi-natural habitats. Thus, the improvement and restoration of diverse habitats can enrich the diversity of the landscape and create a network of heterogeneous habitats with direct influences on the richness and abundance of insect populations.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of LIFE PollinAction is to mitigate this pollination crisis by creating a green infrastructure (GI) network, made up of natural and semi-natural areas, in rural and urban landscapes in North-East Italy. This will involve habitat restoration and the implementation of nature-based solutions. The project is mainly aimed at converting arable crops and rural or urban marginal areas into key habitats for pollinators. To reach this objective, it will improve species-poor grasslands and landscape heterogeneity by creating connectivity among rural and urban areas as well as along road infrastructure and riverbanks.

In order to achieve long-term sustainability and embed the GI approach within policy and practice, LIFE PollinAction will assess the ecosystem conditions and services and will implement payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. The definition of an urban planning of compensation measures at local scale will be also considered as well as the design of circular economy processes and close-to-market solutions to boost farmer competitiveness.

The project will be replicated in a marginalised and abandoned area in the Aragon region of Spain. This will allow the effectiveness of GI to be evaluated in two areas with opposite dynamics (i.e. specialisation/intensification vs. marginalisation/abandonment).

LIFE PollinAction will contribute to the EUs green infrastructure strategy and the EU 2020 biodiversity strategy (targets 1, 2 and 3). In addition, the project will help implement the Spanish national action plan for pollinator conservation, while the autonomous community of Aragon is also considering a pollinator conservation plan.

RESULTS

Expected results include:

Conversion of more than 200 000 m2 of arable land into grasslands and improvement of 2.3 million m2 of species-poor grasslands, involving 11 farms and 10 municipalities;

Creation of 25 000 m2 of species-rich woody shrub assemblages, 50 000 m2 of stepping-stone corridors along 30 km of regional road infrastructure, 3 500 m of hedgerows, 10 000 m2 of species-rich wildflower strips, and 14 new networks of pollination interactions;

50% increase of frequency of visit from pollinators to spontaneous plants, resulting in a 10% improvement in yield in six animal-dependent orchards neighbouring the intervention areas;

Production of almost 360 000 native herbaceous plant seedlings, over 28 000 native woody shrubs seedlings and 150 kg of seeds;

Work towards the realisation of a quantitative database on ecosystem services and for the implementation of PES schemes, to help develop incentives supporting the creation and maintenance of habitats for pollinators in regional and national agricultural policy;

Two close-to-market solutions designed for the valorisation of honey and milk produced in the highly heterogeneous landscape.