Release of thematic assessment of pollinators, pollination and food production (deliverable 3(a))

This two-year study conducted and released today by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights a number of ways to effectively safeguard pollinator populations.

The assessment is a global assessment of pollinators. It covers changes in animal pollination as a regulating ecosystem service that underpins food production and its contribution to gene flows and restoration of ecosystems. It addresses the role of native and exotic pollinators, the status of and trends in pollinators and pollination networks and services, drivers of change, impacts on human well-being, food production of pollination declines and deficits and the effectiveness of responses to pollination declines and deficits. The assessment is required for enhancing policy responses to declines and deficits in pollination.

The assessment found that a growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies.

This is the first ever issued assessment by IPBES and the first assessment of its kind that is based on the available knowledge from science and indigenous and local knowledge systems. It was released today at the fourth session of the Platform’s Plenary (IPBES-4) held from 22 to 28 February 2016, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

IPBES-4 Press release: “Pollinators vital to our food supply under threat”

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