Group aims to use empty fields to help pollinator population
LONDON, ONT. It sounds too good to be true: A way to save the dwindling bee population that requires people of goodwill to do — well, not much.
“It is true and it is good,” said would-be bee saviour Rick Tusch of Delaware. “I think this is going to spread across the country and the world.”
Tusch’s dream goes something like this: Do you have any spare land, extra space you aren’t using?
He’d like to seed it, creating pollen pathways in Southwestern Ontario for bees to follow, so they can do their job and bee populations can thrive.
So: Find parcels of land, plant seeds, let them grow, save bees. More or less.
Tusch has started a non-profit — Pollinative — to support his campaign.
“Pollinative will access land parcels, plant seed mix to grow, establish bee population, bees will help with the growth of the grasslands and meadows while we are helping bring back the bee population,” the group says on its website. “Not just help bees, we want to help all endangered pollinating species.”
The obvious contributors of land are farmers — of which there are plenty in the region, one of Canada’s richest farm belts — who have fallow fields.
Such a network of land could be “a half-acre here, an acre there,” in Tusch’s words. “So eventually, in two or three years, you’ll have a field that’s flowering from spring to fall,” he said.
All the farmers would have to do, is watch the fields grow.
He also pictures many more possible sources of new meadows.
Tusch uses the example of developers whose strategy is to buy and hold land, sometimes for years or even decades — not a theoretical concern in a city like London. Instead of letting their holdings devolve into wasteland, Tusch hopes developers could be convinced to let such land be converted into meadowland, forming a link in network and even more pollen pathways.
“At least they’re productive in helping society,” he said of such parcels sitting empty.
Bees and other pollinators have taken a beating in recent years, the decline in the former especially — a change many attribute to the use of a family of insecticides, neonicotinoids.
Neonicotinoids, commonly known as neonics, are often applied as a seed coating to protect field crops like corn and soybeans, two of Southwestern Ontario’s biggest crops.
Tusch sees other possible meadows-in-the-making for bees, too — not just agricultural lands.
“We could use the 400-series (highways) as a corridor,” Tusch said, referring to roadside rights-of-way.
As a side-effect, his campaign could also help birds and bats.
“(Bees) is one mainstay of it. But it’s not just the bees. When the bees die, they’re not the only insect affected,” Tusch said. “There’s no insects, there’s no birds.”
At least one bee expert approves of the concept of using fallow land to help bees.
“It’s a great idea. I think we should do more of that,” said thirdgeneration beekeeper Chris Hiemstra.
Hiemstra tends to some 1,000 hives in Southwestern Ontario, including about 25 at his Clovermead adventure farm in Aylmer.
Hiemstra cited a similar program, ALUS Canada, already in place, and farmers get a tax break for using their fallow fields in this way.
“It’s kind of a cool program,” he said. “They’re looking for corridors, just like they have wildlife corridors.”
Tusch soft-launched one of his first field sites last week in Delaware, before an audience that included an MPP whose largely-rural riding straddles portions of three counties.
“I’m quite excited about it and it’s going to be a very exciting day for conservation in Ontario,” said Progressive Conservative Monte McNaughton of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex.
And there is even more bright news for bees on the horizon. Hiemstra said the measures taken by the Ontario government to curb the use of neonics as pesticides are paying dividends.