FLORENCE –Alabama’s two National Heritage Areas and two Rotary Districts are working together to protect pollinators.
Recently, leaders from Rotary Districts 6860 and 6880, Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area and Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area signed an Operation Pollination Partnership. In the resolution, the Rotary Districts and NHAs agree to collaborate on improving pollinators’ declining numbers.
On April 19, leaders from Rotary Districts 6860 and 6880, Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area and Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area signed a joint Pollinator Resolution that acknowledges pollinators are declining in numbers and Rotary and NHAs can act together to help. This is the second time in Rotary history that an entire state has collectively pledged to support pollinators.
Operation Pollination is a pollinator conservation framework where everyone — Rotary and other organizations — is invited to participate. In the past 50 years, pollinator populations have declined by more than 40% across the globe. In some areas of the world, this decline is even more severe. Alabama’s state insect, the iconic monarch butterfly, has declined by more than 80%, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Pollinators are critical to life on Earth, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More than 85% of the world’s plants need insect pollinators for their reproductive success, and insect pollinators are directly responsible for more than 30% of the food we eat.
You and your organization can help pollinators by joining Operation Pollination. First sign a pollinator resolution acknowledging the environmental issue of pollinator decline, then pledge to actively help reverse the decline in a way that works for you. Visit https://esrag.org/pollinators/ for project ideas and contact MSNHA Programs Coordinator TJ Johnson at tjohnson34@una.edu for details.
Media Release/Cathy Wood/MSNHA media coordinator
