The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will support the new All-Ireland Pollinator Plan through the provision of a farmland pollinator officer, according to Minister Pippa Hackett.
The officer will assist in the implementation of the farmland actions in the new pollinator plan for 2021 to 2025. A specific work programme will be developed to support delivery of the actions and to safeguard pollinators on farmland.
They will “play a vital role in helping all of us – from local authorities to schools, gardeners and businesses, but particularly farmers, to work together to try to create an Ireland where pollinators can not only survive, but thrive”.
“Pollinators play a key role in a healthy ecosystem, and taking action to protect and enhance them will benefit biodiversity, and also provide a vehicle for direct engagement with the farming community,” she added.
“The Programme for Government commits to supporting the development of a new pollinator plan for 2021 to 2025.
I expect this to be published by the National Biodiversity Data Centre early in 2021, and I know it will include more ambition with the key objective being to make our landscapes and our farms more pollinator-friendly.
Dr. Liam Lysaght, director of the National Biodiversity Data Centre noted that Ireland’s pollinator plan has been a “hugely innovate approach to addressing biodiversity loss”.
“We are pleased that thanks to the support of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine we can raise our ambitions around making farmland more pollinator friendly, thus, preserving and enhancing this vital ecosystem service,” he said.
The first All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2015-2020 was published to provide a framework through which all sectors “could come together to better protect pollinators for future generations”.
The plan is voluntary. A new plan will be developed to cover the period 2021 to 2025.