Students at Zig Zag Public School participating in the B&B Highway pollinator program
Story and photos by Lis Bastian. Video by Kalani Gacon.
Pollinators are critical for life on earth. As we face a biodiversity crisis in which we’re losing plants and animals at an alarming rate, the Rotary Club of Blackheath and Planting Seeds with their B&B Highway pollinator program, have collaborated to inspire all ages to take action to protect and regenerate habitat and help reverse this decline by supporting pollinators, in particular, to flourish.
Key Points:
We can all take action to reverse the alarming loss of biodiversity by reducing chemical use and land clearing, and by providing food, water and shelter for pollinators.
Rotary International has made Protecting the Environment a new area of focus and the Rotary Club of Blackheath has used a global grant from Rotary to increase education about, and habitat for, pollinators.
Planting Seeds has been supported by Blackheath Rotary to run its B&B Highway program at Zig Zag Public School in Lithgow and Blackheath Public School in the Blue Mountains.
Four years ago, Rotary International made Protecting the Environment a new area of focus and over the past year the Rotary Club of Blackheath has used a Rotary District Grant to fund a Pollinator Education and Action Program.
Initially inspired by Rotarians for Bees, the Blackheath Club has held a Pollinator Forum with the Blue Mountains Planetary Health Initiative (see https://blackheathnews.com/birds-bees-butterflies-bats-pollinators/) , it has built bird boxes with local Men’s Sheds, it has shared seed packs to help the community plant more pollinating plants, and in April this year it funded and volunteered to support B&B Highway programs at Blackheath Public School and Zig Zag Public School in Lithgow.
The B&B Highway Program at Zig Zag Public School in Lithgow(Video: Kalani Gacon)
L-R: Libby Bleakley, Mina Howard and Sherlie McMillan from the Rotary Club of Blackheath volunteering for the B&B program at Blackheath Public School. (Photo: Lis Bastian)
Dr Judy Friedlander is the founder of Planting Seeds. Her PhD focused on how to sell a difficult message, like biodiversity loss, in a way that empowers people to take action to arrest the situation.
B&B Highways, the flagship program for Planting Seeds, are ‘Bed and Breakfasts for Birds, Bees and Biodiversity’. The programs provide both theoretical and practical steps for protecting and regenerating habitat for pollinators to create wildlife corridors in urban and semi-urban environments.
Dr Judy Friedlander (left) explaining how to record insects found in the ‘bug hunt’. (Photo: Lis Bastian)
Halina Pochwyt from Wildplant Rescue, volunteering to show students how to plant natives to increase food and habitat for pollinators in the Blackheath Public School garden. (Photo: Lis Bastian)
Stage three students (years 5 & 6) at Lithgow and Blackheath learnt how they could support pollinators by providing food, water and shelter for them, then took part in a garden bug hunt, before planting habitat for pollinators in their school gardens.
Nicole Lewis, Chief B&B Highway educator, sharing information about pollinators with students at Blackheath Public School. (Photo: Lis Bastian)
One of the insects found by a student during the ‘bug hunt’. (Photo: Lis Bastian)
See the program in action at Lithgow’s Zig Zag Public School here > and find out more about Planting Seeds’ B&B Highway initiative here >
This story has been produced as part of a Bioregional Collaboration for Planetary Health and is supported by the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (DRRF). The DRRF is jointly funded by the Australian and New South Wales governments.
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Lis Bastian is the Senior Lead for Blue Mountains City Council’s Planetary Health Initiative. She is the editor of the Local News Platforms and has been a writer, editor, news presenter and teacher/lecturer covering both cultural and environmental issues for over 30 years. She has been pioneering Solutions/Constructive Journalism in Australia since 2012.
