The Bureau of Land Management recently entered into an agreement with the California-based Coevolution Institute to promote pollinators. The nonprofit CoE oversees the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, involving more than 120 organizations in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

BLM’s partnership with CoE is part of a national effort to increase public awareness about pollinators. Along with other animals, pollinators enable the reproduction of 85 percent of flowering plants, accounting for as much as one-third of the nation’s food supply.

BLM Deputy Director Henri Bisson and CoE Executive Director Laurie Davies-Adams signed the memorandum of understanding to formalize their partnership at U.S. Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington, D.C. The June 28 signing ceremony was BLM’s highlight of National Pollinator Week, which took place from June 24 to June 30.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Conservation Service also signed memorandums of understanding with CoE during National Pollinator Week. The agencies join Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, as well as USDA's Forest Service, in ensuring that federally managed land will support pollinator populations.

“I’m really excited about today’s MOU signing.” said Carol Spurrier, BLM botanist and co-chair of the NAPPC Federal Land Managers Task Force. “This will create more opportunities for BLM work with partners to learn about the pollinator resource on BLM lands.  We suspect that pollinators are declining, and this gives us the chance to include more pollinator-related work in management plans for rare plants and other native plant resources.”

In addition to Spurrier's work through the Federal Land Managers Task Force, BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System is involved with NAPCC through Science Coordinator Catherine Darst of the Monarch Monitoring Task Force. This task force is enthusiastically creating habitat rest stops for migrating monarch butterflies. To protect pollinators that their habitats, Darst recommends a four-step approach:

-Recognize the native pollinators and their habitat that are already on public land.

-Adjust existing land-management practices to avoid causing undue harm to the bees and other pollinators already present.

- Enhance, restore, and create habitat or native bees and butterflies.

- Engage the public in a pollinator garden.

As a Monarch Monitoring Task Force member, Darst promotes creating pollinator gardens at BLM visitor centers and offices. “By creating and maintaining a Monarch Habitat Area, you are contributing to monarch conservation and are helping to assure the continuation of the monarch migration in North America. These efforts will provide habitats for other species, including many pollinators — a rapidly declining and underappreciated, yet important, group of species. By educating others about monarchs and the need to provide habitats for wildlife you will help raise the public’s awareness of important conservation issues.”

What’s the next step for BLM and NAPPC in pollinator work? “Signing two new MOUs with federal agencies was included in the Public Land Managers Task Force work plan for the year,” Spurrier said. “Now that it’s complete, the Task Force can get started with the work we were chartered to do: to review and recommend pollinator friendly practices that can be incorporated into land management project planning. We are also helping NAPPC create a series of ecoregional guides that outline ways gardeners, land managers and farmers can create pollinator habitats. That’s what’s in store here in Washington D.C.”

To learn more about National Pollinator Week, the Coevolution Institute, or the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, visit www.pollinator.org.

For additional information on Interior efforts to promote pollinators, see related articles:

http://www.peoplelandandwater.gov/scienceandstewardship/06-18-07 oregon-trail-fifth.cfm

http://www.peoplelandandwater.gov/scienceandstewardship/blm_06-18-07_good-plants-bad.cfm

http://www.peoplelandandwater.gov/scienceandstewardship/usgs_06-18-07_helping-pollnator-awareness.cfm

http://www.peoplelandandwater.gov/scienceandstewardship/fws_06-20-07_fluttering-to-extinction.cfm