Practical Conservation

“Beautiful wildflowers, perhaps as alluring to bees as they are to people, might someday be planted in “bee pastures.” These floral havens would be created to help propagate larger generations of healthy, hard-working bees.”

Lands around airports represent valuable land that can be managed to support agriculture and/or conservation.  Two examples below:

The “Garden Boys” farm plots around a major airport – from CNN.

Butterflies protected and thriving at LAX – from the Epoch Times.

June 22-27, 2009 is National Pollinator Week to recognize the importance of pollinators to our food system.  The Pollinator Partnership and US Fish & Wildlife Service both have lots of resources about pollinators in recognition of this week.

Here are two videos for this week.

One about the problems pollinators face:

And one about what NRCS is doing and can do to help:

From Native Pollinators in Agriculture Project.

More pollinator resources from the Xerces Society have been added to the Pollinator Manuals page.   The updates are listed below.

Pollinators in Natural Areas: A Primer on Habitat Management.

Pollinator-friendly Parks. How to enhance parks, gardens and other greenspaces for native pollinator insects.

Making Room for Native Pollinators: How to Create Habitat for Pollinator Insects on Golf Courses.

EPA has resources for landscaping with native plants in the Great Lakes states.  Good resources for attracting bees and butterfiles to your yard.

The Pollinator Partnership is creating detailed guides for planting and landscaping to support pollinators (bees, butterflies, etc.) in agricultural lands, gardens and backyards.  Download a detailed book for each ecological region of the US HERE.

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has catalouged (and linked!) a myriad of resources for managing pollinators in agricultural landscapes.  Includes job sheets and fact sheets..many are state specific.