Page 3316 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 21 August 2019
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In 2016 ACT for Bees collaborated with Sustain Australia and found that there is a huge gap in students of all ages in understanding where their food comes from. ACT for Bees have since developed the “Love food? Love bees!” curriculum. They regularly attend markets to speak to people about the issue, and campaign around issues regarding the production of food resources free from toxins so that they will not kill the bees. Something they told me during our time together which stood out for me was that the ACT is not where it needs to be in bee-friendly gardens. This evening, I want to talk about the notion of rewilding cities and bee-friendly gardens.
It is key that urban spaces are designed and adjusted to accommodate pollinator cultivation, as species in decline have very close associations with the local indigenous plants of the region and they have co-evolved. What this looks like in practice can be a reduction in pesticide use in public spaces, including schools, parks and roadside plantings, or an increase in planting street trees. I am thrilled that the latter is clearly on this government’s agenda. I am looking forward to seeing more trees begin to pop up in my own electorate of Yerrabi as part of this year’s budget investment for 17,000 new trees in the next four years. I would also like to acknowledge the ACT government’s effort in updating the MIS 25 urban landscape planting list to reflect ACT for Bees’ own additions to the list. This has been a very important step towards ensuring that Canberra is well on its way to becoming a truly bee-friendly city. There has also been some really encouraging work done in Ginninderry between ACT for Bees and the Riverview developers to create a pollinator corridor in the green spaces throughout the development.
However, there is still much more to be done in this area. For instance, there is much more that everyone in this place could be doing to help increase awareness, simply by publicly engaging with events like World Bee Day or organising community planting for bees events in our own electorates.
It is clear to me that more needs to be done in the ACT to facilitate bee-friendly gardens. An idea that could be explored by the ACT government is the potential for an opt-in database for Canberrans with pollinator gardens. Education in all areas of life is also key in creating an environment in which bee populations can flourish.
ACT for Bees excels at providing top quality resources; however, there is a role that we must work to fill as government. ACT for Bees aims to achieve a set of strong goals that we should all work towards, including: promoting bee-friendly practices for the sake of biodiversity, public health, water and soil health; best practice pesticide legislation; having parks and gardens staff using integrated pest management; having clear and accurate labelling of bee-friendly plants which have not been treated with pesticides and promoting bee-friendly practices; and having street plantings chosen for pollinator forage.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg in what we can be doing to ensure the continued health of our local biodiversity and food resources. The health of bee populations in Canberra is critical to our entire health. I hope that, moving into the future, we can look forward to some real movement in this space.
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