Safeguard has just released its second policy brief outlining the indirect drivers of pollinator decline, linked to the diverse (and diverging) perspectives on pollinators in both policy and practice.
Pollinators are one of the most essential contributors to healthy ecosystems and thriving biodiversity. However, in recent decades, there has been a dramatic decline in pollinating species due to a series of direct and indirect drivers. To address this alarming issue, a growing number of initiatives, declarations and policies have been set at the EU policy level. Despite this, indirect drivers of pollinator loss linked to values, governance and institutions remain understudied in the EU.
In response to that, the Horizon 2020 Safeguard project produced a policy brief, providing an overview of how the EU pollinator agenda – a set of initiatives and policies at the EU policy level to tackle pollinator decline – came to be, while also summarising the indirect drivers of such decline, linked to the diverse and diverging perspectives on pollinators in both policy and practice. The brief highlights the important role of current policies and increased knowledge, and conveys a message of urgency, calling for necessary action in governance, policy and practice to support a positive change for pollinators.
The policy brief is based on research conducted at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), focused on indirect drivers of pollinator loss linked to values, institutions and governance. Safeguard researchers identified six major positions on pollinators among actors, each motivated by specific concerns and understanding regarding the degree of needed change. So far, few positions beneficial to multiple pollinators have been translated into EU institutions and policy, and such translation has been partial. This contributes to pollinator loss, limiting the collective capacity to shift beyond the status quo.
The brief also covers the outcomes of a Safeguard Buzzing Table, organised by the IUCN and SLU in February 2024. The Buzzing Table involved key EU stakeholders active in different policy areas of relevance to pollinators, who pointed out important factors that hinder mainstreaming of pollinator-friendly practices, including reluctance to change, lack of ecological knowledge and understanding of pollinators, governance challenges, short-termism and silo-thinking, unavailability of affordable alternatives and lack of monitoring.
Safeguard concludes that for the pollinator agenda to foster meaningful change, EU institutions need to target indirect drivers of pollinator loss linked to values, governance and institutions, thereby focusing on integrating the “pollinator-file” across sectors, recognising and addressing power imbalances at play in the pollinator agenda, fostering opportunities for dialogue and stakeholder engagement, and combining ecological science and socio-political knowledge into decision making.
Read the full policy brief here.