Students at Blairmount Public School kicked off pollinator week a bit early with the ‘Bringing back the buzz to the Cumberland Plain Woodland’ project. Pollinator week, 12-19th November, is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our native bees and contribute to their conservation.
“There’s over 1600 species of native bees in Australia, but when most people think of a bee – all they see is European Honeybees,” says Margot Law, Citizen Science Officer at the National Parks Association of NSW.
“While our native bees do a lot of the hard work pollinating our bushland and gardens, they have completely different habitat requirements to European Honeybees. Most native bees are solitary and do not live in hives; instead, they build nests in the ground, pithy stems or small holes in wood. Our obsession with neat gardens and lawns has seen lots of pollinator habitat from the landscape,” says Ms Law.
The ‘Bringing back the buzz to the Cumberland Plain Woodland’ project has launched six bushcare groups to conserve and improve pollinator habitat in the Macarthur region, including one at John Kidd Reserve at Blair Athol which meets on the second Sunday of the month. The project is also running pollinator conservation workshops for community and schools.
“Last Thursday sixty students from Blairmount Public School learnt all about pollinator conservation and how they can help provide habitat and flowers to pollinators at school and at home,” says Ms Law.
“The students went on a treasure hunt to find pollinator habitat in our school’s gardens. They also designed and built their own bee hotels to encourage pollinators to their own gardens. To top it off, everyone got to take some native plants to provide flowers for pollinators at home too,” said Miss Howick and Mrs Jones, teachers at Blairmount PS.
“These students are the next generation of conservationists. It is so heartening to see so many nature lovers in the classroom who realise that without pollinators in the landscape, our environment is in big trouble.
“You can help pollinators all year round by planting a variety of native flowers, reducing pesticide use, making a bee hotel or joining your local bushcare group,” says Ms Law.
MEDIA CONTACT
Margot Law: 0439 407 063 or margotl@npansw.org.au
‘Bringing back the buzz to the Cumberland Plain Woodland’ is managed by the National Parks Association of NSW with support from the NSW Government’s Environmental Trust.