Wild pollinators are a key part of European biodiversity and provide a wide range of benefits to crops, wild plants, and human wellbeing. In Europe and globally, wild pollinators are facing multiple threats, however, the full extent of declines, their complex causes, and the most effective ways to respond to them are not well understood. Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe’s capacity to reverse the losses of wild pollinators. Safeguard will significantly expand current assessments of the status and trends of European wild pollinators including bees, butterflies, flies and other pollinating insects. We will use state-of-the-art models to predict the impacts of pressures on pollinators, paying particular attention to emerging threats, multiple and interacting drivers, long-term and cumulative effects, and multiple spatial scales. Safeguard will establish empirical research for a systematic multi-scale assessment of multiple pressures on pollinators and the context-dependent effectiveness of interventions. Working with our stakeholders, we will provide an improved understanding of the diverse values of European pollinators, and develop and test new approaches using multiple interventions to benefit pollinators, from field to landscape scales across agricultural, natural, and urban systems. We will co-develop with stakeholders an integrated assessment framework and tools that incorporate multiple types of evidence to address pollinator declines and direct mitigation strategies at the local, national, and EU levels. Safeguard will use the significant advance in knowledge to inform national, European, and global policies and decision-making. Finally, Safeguard will increase awareness of wild pollinators and their societal values with the public, policy makers, scientists, industry, and NGOs, to mobilise concerted multiple actions towards reversing pollinator declines across Europe.

Website: https://www.safeguard.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/

grant agreement Number: 101003476

Members of the Consortium