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