“Our students, faculty, and staff have long been champions for sustainable environmental practices,” said Morgan King, Humboldt’s Climate Action Analyst. “The Bee Campus USA designation underscores our contributions to a pollinator-friendly campus and to enhancing pollinator populations through education, restoration, events, and adoption of non-toxic pest management practices.”
Bee Campus USA is an initiative of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, with offices across the country. Its mission is to inspire communities and campuses to sustain pollinators by providing them with healthy habitats, rich in a variety of native plants, and free of pesticides. Pollinators like bumble bees, honey bees, butterflies, beetles, hummingbirds, and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost 90% of the world's flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food people eat.
“The program aspires to make people more PC—pollinator conscious, that is,” said Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces’ executive director. “If lots of individuals and communities begin planting native, pesticide-free flowering trees, shrubs, and perennials, it will help to sustain many, many species of pollinators.”
Around the world, populations of bees and other pollinators are declining due to habitat loss, disease, pesticide use, and climate change. According to King, the university is well on its way to improving the campus for pollinators. “We now have some pollinator-friendly gardens on campus and we are planning for more. Our Grounds Department is developing a pest management plan that will restrict the use of pesticides, and classes in multiple disciplines already offer service learning opportunities that enhance pollinators and their habitats.”
Moving forward, the university’s Landscape and Tree Advisory Committee will help lead ongoing pollinator-conservation efforts.
For more information about Cal Poly Humboldt’s Bee Campus USA program, go to https://facilitymgmt.humboldt.edu/grounds or contact Morgan King at mpk9@humboldt.edu.
For more information about Bee Campus USA, visit https://www.beecityusa.org/
For more information about the Xerces Society, visit https://xerces.org/
For information about four simple ways to help pollinators, visit https://xerces.org/bringbackthepollinators/