An ambitious plan to help our bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinating insects has been launched today by Buglife. Dorset’s B-Lines mapping, funded by Defra, aims to connect some of the county’s best remaining wildlife sites through targeted wildflower habitat creation, linking north to south, east to west and towns to the countryside.
Buglife has worked with local authorities and other partners to map out a network of potential wildflower habitat – called B-Lines, and is inviting farmers, landowners and the public to get involved in creating new pollinator habitat, and practically restoring wildflower-rich grasslands.
Bees and other pollinators are disappearing from our countryside because of a lack of wildflower-rich habitats. Three million hectares, 97%, of the UK’s wildflower-rich grasslands have been lost since the 1930s. Creating pollinator habitat along B-Lines will help wildlife move across our countryside, saving threatened species and making sure that there are plenty of pollinators out there to help us grow crops and pollinate wildflowers.
Dorset is just one of the counties recently mapped leading to the completion of the England B-lines network, enabling Buglife’s vision of a river of wildflowers across the UK to be realised. The next step will be getting wildflower restoration and creation happening across the country.
Hayley Herridge from Buglife said “This is an exciting opportunity for people to help our struggling insect pollinators. If we establish a network of wildflowers across our landscape, we can support healthy populations of bees and other pollinators enabling them respond to threats such as climate change.”
“If you have land which you are interested in restoring to wildflower-rich grassland, or if you would like to get involved in other ways, please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.”
Imogen Davenport from Dorset Wildlife Trust said “Insects are in serious trouble and the national network of B-Lines will help inspire and complement local projects. We all need to take Action for Insects.”
