Pollinator Pathways promoted at Bee Symposium

Anabel Kindersley, co-owner of Neal’s Yard Remedies, is doubling down efforts to protect pollinators with a new campaign aimed at boosting bee populations, support for which she rallied at a Bee Symposium at Camley Street Natural park in London last month.

Described by panel moderator Sarah Sands of The Today Programme as ‘unstoppable’, Kindersley has long been campaigning to stop emergency authorization of neonicotinoid use, which has occurred repeatedly against the recommendations of the Government’s own scientific advisors.

No stranger to Downing Street and Defra, Kindersley says systemic change can only occur through collaboration and ‘emotional connection’ to bees, with these ‘profoundly clever creatures’ being acknowledged as sentient beings. Citing studies by German zoologist Lars Chittka, Kindersley spoke of the well documented intelligence of bees, known to coordinate their collective hives; to think; to recognize human faces and particular flowers or shapes; to identify their favourite colour, purple; to intuitively solve complex problems and teach those skills to other bees; and to display human emotion, specifically anxiety and PTSD when faced with predators.

“That, to me, is a sentient being. That’s why we can’t kill them with pesticides, why we have to do everything we can to help their habitat,” Kindersley told signatories of the #StandByBees campaign. “When it comes to their work we all know that one in three mouthfuls of food depends on pollinators. We won’t starve if we want to have only a diet of bread, rice, porridge. Without essential vitamins from apples, pears, blueberries, almonds, our health wouldn’t stand a chance. Economically we wouldn’t fare well either; in the UK alone our pollinator services would cost us annually £580 million to replace. What would our world look like if we didn’t have bees? What if we had an insect apocalypse? To quote [Professor] Dave Goulson, we’d have a silent land. We’d be carefully collecting pollen from apples with old paint brushes in order to have basic fruit and vegetables.”

To boost declining bee populations Neal’s Yard Remedies has created a Pollinator Pathways map, through which it is encouraging businesses and individuals to plant pollinator-friendly species in their local areas, constructing a ‘buzzing network of habitats’ across the UK. “Every plot counts, from window boxes to larger wildflower meadows,” says Kindersley.

Together with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the brand hopes the project will ‘restore vital habitats for pollinators, ensuring their survival and the biodiversity of our environment for generations to come’.

By Rosie Greenaway, editor