VALOR co-authors new joint factsheet on pollinators and resilience
What do pollinators have to do with food prices, public health or international trade? Quite a lot, according to a new factsheet co-authored by VALOR and three other EU projects: AGRI4POL, Butterfly and ProPollSoil.
The factsheet argues that pollinators should be part of the wider resilience agenda. They are still often treated as only a conservation topic, but they also support food and nutrition security, trade, health, land management and climate adaptation.
The figures make the case clearly. Insufficient pollination already reduces global fruit, vegetable and nut production by an estimated 3–5%, a loss linked to around 427,000 additional deaths a year from lower consumption of healthy food. A global pollinator collapse could raise crop prices by 30% and cause welfare losses of USD 729 billion.
The factsheet also highlights that managed honeybees and bumblebees cannot make up for the decline of wild pollinators. Wild bees, flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, birds and bats provide pollination that managed species can’t fully replace. For readers in different policy areas, it explains how the CBD, IPBES, UNDRR and FAO define resilience and where pollinators fit in.
The authors point to concrete ways forward. These include aligning biodiversity, climate, land and chemicals policies, restoring connected habitats, reducing pesticide pressure, accounting for trade and supply chains, integrating pollinators into land-use planning and encouraging private-sector involvement.
Contributors (alphabetical): Holly Barclay, Tom Breeze, ProPollSoil (Paolo Biella, Pilar de la Rúa, Justine Dewaele, Monika Egerer, Georgios Vlontzos, Paul Hallett, Jacek Jachuła, Alex Keller, Georgios Kleftodimos, Sara Diana Leonhardt, Fabio Manfredini, Edward Mitchell, Astrid Neumann, Fabrice Requier, Aleksandra Splitt, Markus Sydenham), Mirella Miettinen, Hien Ngo, Simon Potts, Tereza Prášilová Chábová, Fabiana Spinelli, Tiffany Straza, Adam Vanbergen.