[Pollinator] MEDIA RELEASE: Pollinators Celebrate 2010 USDA-CIG Awards Across the Country

[Vicki Wojcik]

MEDIA RELEASE

Contact:

Vicki Wojcik, Ph.D.

Pollinator Partnership

415-362-1137

vw at pollinator.org




 

Pollinators Celebrate 2010 USDA-CIG Awards Across the Country

 

August 13, 2010

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA: Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) awards were announced
this week form USDA offices in Washington, D.C., sending a clear message in
support of pollinators. The CIG program promotes projects that take
conservation knowledge and put principals into action. Requests for
proposals included a focus on the importance of pollinators to wild and
agricultural landscapes, making it clear that pollinators are indeed a
national priority. With over $700,000 dollars of matching funds going toward
projects that provide habitat for and support pollinating species, the bees,
bats, beetles, butterflies, and birds are the real winners!

 

As part of the 2010 CIG program, the Pollinator Partnership (P2) has been
awarded funding for a unique habitat development plan that is working to
promote an important portion of the native bee community - the wood-nesting
bees. Available nesting sites are often more limiting to bee health and
population growth than other ecological factors including available host
flowers, or parasitism. Taking a total habitat approach to native bee
conservation, scientists at P2 and local collaborators at the American River
Parkway in Sacramento, California and at the Native Seeds/SEARCH
conservation farm in Patagonia, Arizona will being work on developing
habitat sites with a mix of food plants and nesting resources. 

 

In addition to the P2 project, pollinators will benefit across the US
landscape from the work of other research and conservation groups. Major
agricultural pollinator assessments will be under way at the University of
California, Davis as researchers and partners work to refine planting
protocols for pollinators in agricultural landscapes. Mississippi State
University will be working to promote pollinators in biofuel landscapes
though habitat development guidelines within the state. The Xerces Society
and partners at the Monarch Joint Venture will promote a network of milkweed
plantings throughout the country. 

 

Tom Van Arsdall, P2 Public Affairs Director, commented: "We greatly value
the support of pollinators to agriculture and now, the support of
agriculture for pollinators. So much potential good can come from these
practical land based initiatives for a sustainable and productive
agricultural future."

 

Pollinators are essential to terrestrial ecosystems and are responsible for
the production of one of every three bites of food that we eat. Pollinator
decline would have serious negative consequences for all living things. The
development of habitat and refugia sites is central in helping to preserve
these valuable species. Efforts across the country will collectively
contribute to great, positive landscape change for pollinators.

 

# # # 

P2 is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that encourages the health of native
pollinator populations throughout North America.  P2 accomplishes this
mission through scientific research, conservation projects, policy
development, its management of NAPPC (North American Pollinator Protection
Campaign), and various outreach efforts including mailings, public events
such as National Pollinator Week, corporate partnerships, and its website
[www.pollinator.org].

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20100813/1965ed7a/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 5690 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20100813/1965ed7a/attachment.jpe>