What is a Pollinator Pathway
If you are wondering what a Pollinator Pathway is, it is any public and private pesticide-free corridor of native plants that provide nutrition and habitat for pollinating insects and birds. Even the smallest green spaces, like flower boxes and curb strips, can be part of a pathway.
The loss of pollinators is alarmingly high, and in decline primarily due to land development and fragmentation, a lack of native plants due to an increase in invasive plant species, and a lawn culture that requires excessive fertilizers and pesticides which offers no benefit to pollinators and other wildlife.
Pollinator species such as bees, birds, butterflies and other pollinating insects are vital to maintaining healthy and diverse ecosystems, and are responsible for the food we eat. One in every three bites of food we eat is because of pollinators. Without pollinators, we won’t have any food.
You can help.
Become a part of the Pathway.
Our landscapes have been chopped up or fragmented, through urban and suburban-ization. The problem is we can no longer support sustainable populations of wildlife in our isolated parks and preserves alone, for more on this please see Dr. Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware Entomologist’s book Bringing Nature Home.
Luckily there is a solution. If we begin to manage our own yard organically and with native plants, we can use them to connect parks and preserves, creating crucial corridors of wildlife. That is the idea behind the Pollinator Pathway.
Pleasant Valley recently joined the Pollinator Pathway.org with the reading of a proclamation by Supervisor John DelVecchio. As a Pollinator Pathway Town we will encourage entities, businesses and residents to participate in creating a safe native habitat, wherever possible, for threatened pollinators that will facilitate pollinator connectivity.
Anyone can join the Pollinator Pathway, it is easy and free. Just pick a spot in your yard, plant a window box, or some pots with native plants, and they will come; bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other birds and insects. Then pull up a comfortable chair and watch and enjoy nature around you.
