Pollinating pathways to a better future
[Music]
imagine a world
without pollinators a world where we
have to use paint brushes
to transfer pollen between plants
this is starting to happen in places
throughout the world already
now without pollinators the human race
and all of earth’s ecosystems
wouldn’t survive around the world
pollinators are declining
loss of habitat is the main reason
followed by improper use of pesticides
pollution and invasive species
pollinators and plants have a really
special relationship
and neither can exist in isolation
now when you think of pollinators raise
your hand
whose first thought was a honey bee
that’s what i thought now you’ve
probably already heard that bees have
been struggling around the world due to
a combination of risks
including parasites pathogens pesticides
climate change industrial agriculture
monocultures
and loss of habitat due to urbanization
now the domestication of the species has
now reached the point
where these little bees depend on humans
just for their survival
now the honeybees get a lot of the
credit but they’re actually not
the only ones that are doing all the
hard work we have way more creatures
than just the honey bee that pollinate
the plants here in new zealand
but because they don’t produce honey a
lot of them often get ignored
we have over 28 species
of native new zealand bees and unlike
the honey bee
most of them are solitary and they’ll
nest in the ground
we also have a ray of birds bats
lizards skinks butterflies moths flies
beetles and other insects that all
pollinate the plants that we need to
survive
but many of these species are struggling
according to the latest ministry of the
environment report
almost two-thirds of our rare ecosystems
are threatened
and thousands of individual species are
now
at risk of extinction that’s
74 of our birds
84 of our reptiles
and 80 of our bats
with insect numbers still mostly unknown
now we need to be doing everything that
we can to turn these numbers around
before it’s too late because this isn’t
the future that we want to be growing up
in
now over half of the world’s population
are thought to be living in an urban
area
but this figure is set to rise by over
two-thirds by 2050.
now the expansion and intensification of
these urban areas
is resulting in the loss of our soft
landscape areas
which in turn is resulting in the loss
of crucial pollinator habitat
so growing food is known for shaping our
countryside right
we have these large-scale industrial
farms that often specialize in producing
one or two crops and selling them
directly to the supermarkets
this idyllic countryside landscape is
often where we imagine all of our
pollinators to just
run away and hide we don’t need bugs in
the city
right well actually it’s these places
that they’re struggling
research has shown that in these
high-intensity agricultural
areas our native bee populations
declined by
90 percent and some species just
disappeared entirely
but the good news is as these species
are actually flourishing
in the lower intensity sites like our
community garden
which means that by welcoming them into
our cities
we might actually have a chance of
saving them
so growing food is gaining a lot more
prominence within
cities and it’s simple we need to be
growing our food where the people
are so locally grown food is helping to
reduce the impact of climate change
by reducing food miles and co2 emissions
now every little bit is important from
our larger community gardens
to just growing a few things on your
balcony
but without pollinators there to
pollinate these things
these places are going to struggle
because we know that the health
and resilience of our native and our
agricultural systems
depends on biodiversity so we need to
have a wide range of pollinators
to sustainably feed our growing nation
so my goal is to connect up key habitat
patches
such as parks and urban agriculture hubs
using vegetated corridors to provide a
place for pollinators to live
breed travel and forage
pollinators don’t really care about
property boundaries like we have to
so we form pollinator paths by
connecting together both public
and private land so that includes our
open spaces our parks our reserves
streams town squares nature play areas
playgrounds and our sports field edges
this can then connect up with a series
of green roofs
and living walls this would then link
together with our community gardens
our city farms and our urban
agricultural hubs
it would then be strengthened by the
planting that people do
in their own back gardens
and then it would be linked by what we
do with our transport corridors
so on our grass berms and verges and our
streetscapes
and our public transport network along
our walking and cycling paths
and along our highways to create a
network of paths
that runs throughout our city
so the major obstacles and urban areas
for our pollinators are our transport
corridors
our parking rots and our buildings so we
need to be looking at really
space efficient ways of linking this
habitat within our densest urban areas
so our cities are like a big jigsaw
puzzle of green spaces
every park and every pathway is an
important piece
of that puzzle so
why a pathway why does it even need to
be connected
you see all pollinators can travel at
different distances
so we need to be designing to the lowest
common denominator
and that’s this guy our skinks and our
lizards
and our non-flying insects you see the
birds and bees can fly for
miles to find food but these lizards can
only run
really short distances between patches
of vegetation
to avoid the predators so we’re starting
to look into the plausibility
of special crossings beneath our roads
for our reptile friends
now this is me when i was a kid i was
known
as the bug girl i absolutely
loved bugs so much and i was always that
kid
that was in class while all the other
children and teachers were screaming
about the big scary spider in the corner
i was the one going to save the day and
i always wanted to save the world
but i kind of wanted it to be a bit
bigger than that
but i was also diagnosed with a pretty
debilitating medical
medical condition which i fought
throughout my teenage years
there were many times that i actually
thought i wasn’t going to make it
but battling it really gave me this
sense of urgency
that if i was going to play a part in
helping to save the world
then i really had to get on with it
so after completing my degree in
landscape architecture
at age 22 i set about my mission to
create new zealand’s first pollinator
path
so this path it runs one and a half
kilometers through greyline
and which is a suburb on the edge of
auckland city centre
it connects up a sports park and a large
reserve
with a local urban agriculture hub
so this is the first prototype path
along the path
so this installation was put in in 2016
and we had a whole range of different
stakeholders from local community groups
to neighbours to local businesses
and we planted a whole array of
different plants that all flower at
different times throughout the year
we also installed bumblebee and
leafcutter bee boxes
we built a cascading masonry wall that
we filled with different habitat
materials
and we made sure that there was lots of
ground covers leaf litter sticks and
logs for the pollinators to be able to
hide in
this is a photo from our opening day
we had over a hundred people come to
this really little park
and this was really humbling because
it’s easy to forget what’s important as
we go about our busy
often insulated lives but this really
reminded me that people
do care and they do want change and if
we all work together
we can actually achieve some pretty cool
things
so this one is the second part that
we’ve installed along the pathway
so we worked with the kalmana gardens
and the local community to create a
communal welcoming area
for both people and pollinators alike
now the following installations are
going to be completed on one massive
event day next year
with a collection of businesses schools
and community groups
sponsoring creating and maintaining each
section of this pathway
and this will include a pollinator art
installation which will be done by the
local school
where they’ll grow and create a living
artwork made of wild flowers
this installation will also have exposed
sections of clay for the native bees
we will also have a hub for our
butterfly pollinators
which will contain an array of different
host plants that they need
we will be installing a range of
different habitat boxes for birds and
bats and bees and we’ll be installing
some pollinator walls and educational
murals
that include a range of different
habitat materials and plants in a
modular
space-saving arrangement
we will then be planting out all of the
grass verges
and the park edges along the pathway
now currently there’s a real lack of
data so we have had to use the
philosophy
i’ve built it and the pollinators will
come
but the next stage i really want to get
some research grants and sponsorships so
that we can get ecologists
testing and monitoring these sites to
see how many more pollinators are using
them
and then we want to connect and continue
this network
throughout the city now we have so many
collaborations planned
with a range of local businesses and
community groups
and i’ve been contacted by passionate
people throughout new zealand’s major
cities
and even internationally to set up these
networks and as word spreads across the
country
other cities will be able to adopt the
framework and the guidelines that we’ve
been creating
well i really hope that this inspires
you to connect with your community
and to go outside into your garden onto
your berm
maybe to your local school or to your
park and just start to reimagine how you
might be able to reshape this space just
a little bit
to make it just a bit more welcoming to
our pollinator pals
it could really be as simple as planting
some more flowers that flower at
different times of the year
and using natives as much as possible
it’s always good to leave your garden
just a little bit messy you know keep
those fallen leaves and dead branches so
that the pollinators have somewhere to
hide
you could put out a tray of water with
stones in it that way insects have a
place to drink
that they won’t drown in and you can
stop using pesticides in your garden
and tell your local council that you
want to have a spray-free neighborhood
you could leave a patch of exposed soil
for the ground nesting bees
or you could even make your own
pollinator wall or insect hotel with the
kids
let’s start producing our food more
locally and increasing this in connected
habitat
for the pollinators to help create the
future that we want to see
in the world because pollination
really is the pathway to making
healthier
more productive cities thank you
[Applause]
you