How pollinator conservation can unite all for a greener, healthier earth (interview with laurie davies adams of pollinator partnership)
Laurie Davies Adams (@lauriedaviesadams) is the President and CEO of Pollinator Partnership (@pollinators), where she leads the world’s largest nonprofit devoted solely to the health of all pollinators and presided over its signature initiatives: the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC), National Pollinator Week, Eco-Regional Planting Guides, the BeeSmart™ Gardener App, and the U.S. Bee Buffer Project and Monarch Wings Across America.
Laurie has signed agreements with over eleven federal agencies influencing over 1.5 billion acres of US land to encourage pollinator conservation. She was also a key consultant with the White House on the Presidential Memorandum on Pollinators and instrumental in the development of the National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators.
In this podcast episode, Laurie sheds light on how our pollinators affect our food production, climate change, and our public health; the impact of industrializing beekeeping to serve our industrialized agriculture; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Laurie and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
“There are about 1,200 crop species and of those species, about 1,000 require pollination.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological balance, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or any podcast app to stay informed and updated on our latest episodes.
On the importance of pollinators in our daily lives:
"In the Western diet, we say that one in every three bites of food relies on a pollinator to bring it to us.
That's a lot, but when you think about it, that's the juice you had for breakfast, the tomato on your sandwich, and even the dairy you consume, because dairy cattle consume alfalfa which is bee-pollinated. So, about a third of our diet [is dependent on pollinators].
But when you look at the crop species, there are about 1,200 crop species and of those species, about 1,000 require pollination.”
On collaborating with the agriculture sector:
"We can't just tell agriculture, ‘you have to change everything.’ We have to say, ‘how can we work together to maintain food and increase it while maintaining biodiversity and increasing it? What can we do to make that happen?’
I don't think that's a pipe dream. I think that's quite doable—it's a matter of priority and conscious interaction."
On what we can do to support our pollinators:
“[You can] plant for pollinators, reduce your chemical impact and reduce your carbon footprint.
Every time you turn off a light, you can say, ‘here, this is for you, bees.’ This is reducing what you use. These are great things to do, everywhere."
Final words of wisdom:
“To everyone who's listening to this, I send you butterflies and bees and I send you great experiences going forward making this a safe, sustainable, peaceful, and loving planet.”
