buglife takeover!
This week, Buglife have taken over our blog, to let you know abit more about the B-Lines project for all our wonderful small creatures...
"We all see wildflowers as beautiful and great for our well-being. But for the thousands of pollinating insects that share this land with us, wildflowers are vital. But, there’s a problem. Pollinators are finding themselves in isolated oases, walled in by agricultural land, urban landscapes, roads, and gardens. What humans see as neat and tidy; insects see as desert! Imagine trying to travel around Britain without our road and rail network. Or imagine if nine out of every ten miles of road just didn’t exist – life would be impossible!
Well for much of our wildlife this is the reality – it is confined to tiny fragments of habitat and unable to move across the countryside as our climate and landscape rapidly changes. It has been predicted that 40-70% of species could go extinct if action is not taken to enable species to move through the landscape (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007).
Since 1940 we’ve lost ninety seven percent of our flower rich meadows and hundreds of our pollinator species are in decline. At Buglife we have come up with a beautiful solution to the problem. B-Lines – a network of insect pathways along which we are restoring and creating wildflower rich habitat.
These insect super highway will extend across the whole of the UK, allowing wildlife to move freely through our countryside and towns. B-Lines are an imaginative and beautiful solution to the problem of the loss of flowers and pollinators. The B-Lines are a series of ‘insect pathways’ running through our countryside and towns, along which we are restoring and creating a series of wildflower-rich habitat stepping stones. They link existing wildlife areas together, creating a network, like a railway, that will weave across the British landscape. This will provide large areas of brand new habitat benefiting bees and butterflies – but also a host of other wildlife.
B-Lines bring a range of benefits to wildlife, people and agriculture, including:
- Helping conserve our native pollinators and a range of other wildlife and contributing towards Biodiversity targets
- Helping our wildlife respond to climate change by making it easier for them to move around
- Increasing the number of insect pollinators and the benefits these bring to our farming sector (pollination being an important ‘ecosystem service’)
- Bringing nature to people
B-Lines have been mapped across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Along with conservation partners, land managers, businesses and local authorities, we are helping to fill the mapped areas with restored and new wildflower-rich areas. B-Lines aims to create and restore at least 150,000 hectares of flower-rich habitat across the UK.
We need your help to make it happen:
- Restoring fields of wildflowers
- Making space for wildlife in our towns on road verges, local parks or gardens.
- Mowing the lawn less often, it’s the easiest thing you can do for your local pollinators.
Then add your project to the B-Lines map. Help us make our network of habitats bigger, better and more joined up.
https://www.buglife.org.uk/our-work/b-lines/
Warm Wishes
Paul Hetherington
Buglife
We hope you’ll love our #wildthoughts blog!