[Pollinator] 40 percent of invertebrate pollinators face extinction across the globe

Mon Feb 29 11:13:16 PST 2016

From: Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/40-percent-bees-and-butterflies-face-extinction-431047

40 PERCENT OF INVERTEBRATE POLLINATORS FACE EXTINCTION ACROSS THE GLOBE

BY CHRISTINA PROCOPIOU <http://www.newsweek.com/user/21030> ON 2/27/16 AT
11:19 AM

Pollinators are under threat—and that means that one in three bites of food
that we eat is at risk. Additionally, this threat places the almost 90
percent of flowering plants needing pollination across the world on shaky
ground, potentially endangering the wildlife that depend on them for food.

According to a report
<http://www.nature.com/news/global-biodiversity-report-warns-pollinators-are-under-threat-1.19456>
sponsored
by the United Nations that draws on the research findings of about 3,000
scientific papers, 40 percent of invertebrate pollinator species—such as
bees and butterflies, not birds and bats—are facing extinction. In
addition, 16 percent of vertebrate pollinators, including a number of
species of bats and birds, are also threatened with extinction.

Scott Black, the executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate
Conservation, acted as a peer reviewer for the report, which was announced
February 26 by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Black says the study is the
most thorough of the kind he’s seen, and sounds the alarm for governments
around the world to take action for the sake of agriculture and keystone
animal species that rely on pollinated plants.

“Forty percent is a large amount, and that should concern us all—because
agriculture depends on pollinators, but not only because of that,” Black
says. “Without pollinators we’d have wheat, rice, and corn, but we wouldn’t
have our most nutritious foods. We wouldn’t have apples and other fruits or
a lot of vegetables. In the wild, everything from songbirds to grizzly
bears depend on pollinated plants.”

The IPBES was established in 2012
<http://www.nature.com/news/world-governments-establish-biodiversity-panel-1.10505>,
and is roughly modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The intergovernmental scientific body has 124 member governments, and its
pollinator assessment—announced in Kuala Lumpur—went through two rounds of
external peer review.

According to the report, the volume of agricultural production dependent on
animal pollination has increased by 300 percent during the past 50 years;
globally, pollinator-dependant agriculture is an industry worth up to $577
billion annually. However, pollinator-dependent crops show lower growth and
stability in yield than crops that do not depend on pollinators.

"Wild pollinators in certain regions, especially bees and butterflies, are
being threatened by a variety of factors," says IPBES Vice-Chair Sir Robert
Watson.  "Their decline is primarily due to changes in land use, intensive
agricultural practices, and pesticide use, alien invasive species, diseases
and pests, and climate change."

Black says the pollinator decline is part of a broader crisis of
biodiversity loss. The Xerces Society, working with the International Union
for the Conservation of Nature, studies bumblebee decline and has found
that 25 percent of bumblebees in North America face extinction. “I think
having the U.N. pay attention really does lay out not only the problems,
but helps start to lay out solutions,” he says. These include creating more
habitat for pollinators and exercising care with the insecticides used to
protect crops.

Increasingly, developed nations are looking at ways to address pollinator
decline and some developing countries are doing what they can, according to
Black. In the U.S., for example, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum
in 2015 calling for the establishment of a National Pollinator Health
Strategy. Under the strategy, U.S. federal agencies are directed to take
action to help pollinator populations recover through research, public
education and by partnering with the private sector. The goal is to reduce
honeybee losses by reducing insecticide use and monarch butterfly decline
by creating milkweed habitat, as Monarch butterfly larvae feed exclusively
on milkweed plants.

Those like Black who played a role in producing this report hope it urges
governments that are doing nothing to do something and those that are doing
something to do more.

“I think governments sometimes don’t get involved until they see the
effects on the economy that a problem like this can create. This report
puts this issue in those terms: The pollinator crisis is a clear economic
issue because of agriculture,” Black says. “This report will continue to
catalyze governments to take action. We really shouldn’t wait any longer.”

________

*Matthew Shepherd*

Communications Director

*[image: Xerces-logo-CMYK-email_Outlook]*

*Protecting the Life that Sustains Us*

Stay in touch:     *xerces.org <http://www.xerces.org/>*      *Xerces blog
<http://www.xerces.org/blog/>*      *E-newsletter
<http://www.xerces.org/enewsletters/>*      *Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Xerces-Society/193182577358618>*
  *Twitter
<https://twitter.com/xerces_society>*

628 NE Broadway, Ste 200, Portland, OR 97232-1324, USA

Tel: (503) 232-6639 ext. 110; Toll free: 1-855-232 6639 ext. 110; Cell:
(503) 807-1577

matthew.shepherd at xerces.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20160229/2406f320/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2955 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20160229/2406f320/attachment.jpg>