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Dr. Julie Morris, Ph.D., and Dr. Louise Chawla, Ph.D., discuss the work of the People and Pollinators Action Network (PPAN) to establish and regenerate pollinator habitat in communities throughout Colorado and beyond. By planting certain species of flowering plants, we can help restore food sources and habitat for thousands of pollinators, including: bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. Whether in our own yard or surrounding a public parking lot, we can plant and maintain these special ecological oases in a time of otherwise dwindling habitat.
Both serving on the Board of Directors of PPAN, Dr. Chawla and Dr. Morris describe the primary causes of collapsing pollinator populations, which include: habitat loss; pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, and other agro-chemical pollution; invasive and non-native species; disease vectors; and climate change. Indeed, scientists who study the impacts of changing seasonal cycles upon species and ecosystems (“Phenologists”) indicate that climate destabilization is leading to increasing “mismatches” between the reproductive rhythms of flowering plants and the pollinators who depend upon them. Such stressors upon pollinator populations become especially severe when combined with habitat loss and chemical toxicity.
However, we can help to heal and reverse these alarming trends by planting and maintaining more and more pollinator habitat. Not only are such strategies and activities smart in terms of bolstering the ecosystem services provided by pollinators (which include pollinating much of the food that we eat), they benefit us directly in other ways as well. By foregoing toxic, cancer-causing chemicals, and increasing the biodiversity of our yards, parks, and public spaces, we also enhance the aesthetic, environmental, and biophysical benefits in our surrounding environs. PPAN provides myriad resources and recommendations, and make it easy for all of us to help out with this all-important effort.
The People and Pollinators Action Network also collaborates with state and regional governments, advocating smart stewardship-oriented policy, and establishing innovative projects such as “Pollinator Highways” – in partnership with the Colorado Department of Transportation, PPAN has already established corridors along highways in which the impacts from mowing are reduced in size and frequency, native mixed flower species are planted, buffer zones are established, and toxic chemical spraying is discontinued – not only enhancing the aesthetic and ecological benefits of these corridors, but also reducing budget expenditures for toxic chemicals! Further, PPAN helps to establish Pollinator Safe Communities, working with community leaders to help bring these benefits into neighborhoods and municipalities. Check out PPAN’s “Pollinator Safe Pledge Map,” to find existing projects near you, or to see if you should help start one in your neighborhood (peopleandpollinators.org/map)!
Julie Morris, Ph.D., is an Associate Teaching Professor in Department of Biological Sciences, University of Denver. Her work focuses on biology education and outreach -especially environmental education and strategies to improve engagement and learning effectiveness in large introductory and non-major’s biology courses. She is passionate about preserving biodiversity and is actively involved in several sustainability initiatives on DU’s campus and in the surrounding Denver community. This includes managing DU’s community garden, and advising two undergraduate student organizations -the DU Pollination Association and the DU Botanical Society.
Louise Chawla, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita in the Program in Environmental Design at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work focuses on the benefits of access to nature for children, the development of active care for the natural world, and participatory methods for engaging children and youth in design and planning, as a means of civic development and education for sustainability, and to create communities that support the well-being of all ages. She serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Children and Nature Network, which works to document the benefits of access to nature in spaces of everyday life and promote city greening. She finds common cause in creating green spaces for people and pollinators, and in ensuring that people as well as pollinators are protected from toxic pesticides.
PPAN’s leadership team includes Joyce Kennedy, Executive Director, and Sabina McKay.
RESOURCES:peopleandpollinators.orgpeopleandpollinators.org/mapFacebook: PeopleandPollinatorsInstagram: peopleandpollinatorsSign the Pollinator Pledge: peopleandpollinators.org/our-solution/psn-pledgeEndorse the bill to create a new CO Pollinator License Plate: https://peopleandpollinators.org/pollinator-plates-petition/
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth community podcast on your host, Aaron William Perry.
And today we’re visiting with two of the directors of the people and pollinators action
network Louise Chawla and Julie Morris. Hello. Hi, Aaron. Thanks for having us. Hey,
it’s great having you on today. And I’m really excited that we’re going to be talking
about what’s going on in the world of pollinators, that’s bees and all kinds of other wonderful
insects and animals. And we’re also going to be sharing a variety of calls to action and
opportunities for folks to get involved and help out with this really important issue.
So it’s great having you on.
Yeah, Louise Chawla is Professor Emerita in the program and environmental design at
the University of Colorado in Boulder. Her work focuses on the benefits of access to nature
for children, the development of active care for the natural world and participatory methods
for engaging children and youth in design and planning as a means of civic development
and education for sustainability and to create communities that support the well-being of
all ages. She serves on the scientific advisory committee of the Children and Nature Network,
which works to document the benefits of access to nature in spaces of everyday life and
promote city greening. She finds common cause in creating green spaces for people and pollinators
and in ensuring that people as well as pollinators are protected from toxic pests to sides.
Julie Morris is Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at
the University of Denver. Her work focuses on biology, education and outreach, especially
environmental education and strategies to improve engagement and learning effectiveness
in large introductory and non-majors biology courses. She is passionate about preserving
biodiversity and is actively involved in several sustainability initiatives on the University
of Denver’s campus and in the surrounding Denver community. This includes managing
D.U.’s community garden and advising 200 graduate student organizations, the D.U.
pollinators association and the D.U. Botanical Society. Once again, Louise and Julie, great
to have you on the show. I’m really looking forward to speaking with you right now.
Thanks, Sarah. Sarah and I just want to say we’re directors in the sense that we’re
on the leadership team for people of pollinators’ lecture network, but I want to just put
in a word for our really wonderful staff director, Joyce Kennedy and our communications person
Sabina McKay. We couldn’t be doing what we do without them.
It’s so wonderful. I really appreciate the shot out there. Thank you. We were speaking
a bit about the work before recording the episode. I know they’re managing a number
of great initiatives. Thanks for that. Shout out. Maybe we’ll just use that as a segue
to dive right in. Let me ask you, Louise, can you tell us in a nutshell what is P-Pan
to use the acronym and what are you guys up to?
I will. I’ll jump in and then Julie, come in with everything you want to add. P-Pan formed
around 2015 and it is, as it says, it’s for people and pollinators’ action network,
recognizing that safe bio-diverse habitat for pollinators is also safe and beneficial
for people in many, many ways and we can get into some of those many ways during our talk
today. We need to make common cause and understand that if we’re working to protect biodiversity
and I think there’s a growing awareness now that pollinators are performing essential
ecosystems, services and Julie as a biologist can say a lot more about that. In fact, E.O.
Wilson, the great entomologist, said that if human beings disappear from the planet
all of a sudden, all the other species on Earth would go along with their lives and
actually a lot of them would rebound and start doing better, but if insects disappeared
from the planet, all life on Earth would come crashing down in about three months. And
I think Julie, you can elaborate on that and buy me that prediction, but it’s a dramatic
way of indicating just how much we do depend on healthy habitat for pollinators too.
And so with that goal, Peepan has a number of initiatives. I’ll say a bit about a couple
and then maybe pass them on to you, Julie, to talk about as well. So Peepan works at,
it’s a statewide organization. So one of its main areas of work is with state agencies.
For example, Joyce and other representatives of our group, Joyce Kennedy went to the Department
of Natural Resources and pointed out to them that pollinators are wildlife. I mean,
wild native bees and other wild native creatures, bees, bats, butterflies, are pollinators
and they are wildlife and therefore they need to be protected by the Department for Natural
Resources for Colorado. And that was like, oh, I never thought about that before, response
that we got from the agency, but they jumped on board. And so we are working with them
and helping them develop new land management processes to create a protect and increase
healthy pollinator habitat all over the state. We also work at a city level with municipalities
and we’ve created models for doing pollinator proclamations and resolutions and so far seven
cities in Colorado have done that, including Denver, Boulder, Boulder County, Lafayette,
Longmont, Virtue, Cherry Hills Village. And it involves making the commitment that they’re
going to take a series of steps to make their cities more welcoming, friendly, habitable
fakes for pollinators, but at the same time that’s good for people. For example, if they
change city parks and city lands to organic turf, that’s better for safer for people, safer
for children, safer for pets, and move toward pollinator friendly plantings tends to be water
conserving as well. And I think as we talk today, we can talk about the kind of multiple
ecosystem services and benefits that are achieved by actually focus on creating safe places
for pollinators. And I know Julie is an expert on that ecosystem services and can talk
about that with us. We have pollinator safe communities encouraging private landowners,
both farmers and people just with their private yards to plant for pollinators and create
biodiversity. We do webinars with a butterfly pavilion and Denver Botanic Gardens. We organize
an annual Colorado pollinators summit where people get together from all over the state
to share both action initiatives and research going on about pollinators in the state. We
just recently a couple years ago helped form an environmental health coalition with many
other groups of the state lobby and the state legislature. When we talk about the pollinator
license plate petition, we can say more about that. And do plant and seed swaps. Julie, do
you want to say something about the pollinator highways initiative as well?
Yeah, sure. I’m relatively new to the P-Pan board. I’ve just come on in the last year,
but was sort of aware of the activity of the group before that. And you know, my main
interest in becoming part of the group was sort of education and outreach initiatives.
So hopefully reaching more people than just the students in our classes, sort of public
outreach is I think pretty important. And so any ways to raise awareness. And Louisa already
mentioned the Colorado pollinator summit, which is just a really great way to lots of
people coming together from land management to business people to, you know, city organizers
to concern citizens, all looking at ways that we might interact. And that’s sort of one
way that I became aware of what was going on. And the other was, as Louisa mentioned,
the pollinator highway project. So P-Pan works with the Colorado Department of Transportation.
And a couple of years ago, I think, 2017, they, we designated the, the first sort of official
Colorado pollinator highway on I-76 from Julesburg to Denver, I believe. And the, the goal
is to change the way they manage the sides of the highway and increase pollinator habitats.
So decrease the mowing, add specific plantings that can provide forage and food and, and
nesting sites for pollinators, but, but also to draw attention and raise awareness. I think
one of the most important things is often people aren’t aware of the problem. And, and really how
easy it is to make some impactful changes. And so I think that’s one really great thing about
P-Pan and the others to start thinking about how we can change policies both at the state level
and local levels as, as we raise awareness and people start to care thinking about how we can
actually start to make changes. And the, you know, many of these changes can actually save the
state money because it means holding off and not doing the mowing at the wrong time when you’re
going to be, you know, cutting down plants that are essential for, for pollinator survival. And,
so doing fewer mowing. So with the highways, for example, right along the highways, that’s still
going to be kept short. But then there’s a buffer zone beyond that. And that’s like a perfect place
to plant these pollinator strips, and which will also hold water served like rain gardens. So
certain multiple effects. The other great thing about the highway project is highways are sort of
natural corridors. And one really important thing about ecosystems and sort of managing
and improving ecosystem is connectivity. And being able to use these highways to
connect areas of habitat is really important for the ecosystems.
Yeah, thanks for, for, for pointing that out. And I know that the corridors have been
thought about quite a bit with other conservation and ecosystem stewardship efforts, you know,
with, with larger animals. And it’s, it’s really neat to think about this in terms of the insects
themselves. And I, I want to, you know, I, and also I’m so excited and I will admit a bit proud
that here in Colorado, we’ve got some really cool initiatives underway that folks in other regions
might, you know, be able to adapt and adopt and for, for their needs. And, you know, with, with
our community, it’s, it’s wonderful. The YonEarth community we’re working with folks throughout
the whole country and even internationally. And so, you know, my, my hope in prayer today is that
this discussion might even plant some seeds as it were in other communities outside of our
wonderful rectangular border here in Colorado. And so backing up a little, you know, for folks who
maybe are newer to the conversation, I’d like to dig in a bit both on the ecosystem services
side of the coin and on, on the, the big old, like, you know, what’s the problem side of the coin?
And I know when we had the opportunity to interview Scott Black, executive director of
Cersei’s several months back, he was able to share some stories about, you know, insect
die off rates throughout the United States, particularly in the Midwest and really throughout
the world. So, I wanted to make sure we really underscore the, the severity and scope and scale
of, of the challenge and problem that you guys are addressing through P-Pam. So, with that two
part question, Julie, would I, should I, should I kick that to you first? Yeah, I can jump, jump
in on there. So, one thing that is, I think, attractive about pollinators is, you know, they can
tend to be insects that people have an easier time relating with, often, in many cases,
and see the benefit of and can sort of be, spokes, spokes insects for the rest of the important
organisms. So, like, you’re thinking of like butterflies and bees. Right, yes. You know,
these beautiful spiders. Yeah, spiders and wasps, the predators out there, equally, equally important.
However, you know, in this case, it’s a good, it’s a gateway into the conversation about insect
declines, which are really just part of much broader declines in biodiversity in general.
So, there’s increasing awareness of the catastrophic, I would say, biodiversity loss
happening around the world right now. And the things that are driving that general biodiversity
loss are really the same things that are behind specific insect declines and more specifically
pollinator declines. So, it’s all connected as part of the bigger picture.
And really, what those things are is probably number one habitat loss,
you know, loss of resources and home and space to survive. And that’s definitely the case
with our pollinators, and I can go into some more detail about that. Another would be pollution
in general, and specifically in the case when you’re talking about insects and pollinators,
these tend to be pesticides, right, and other agrochemical types of things. And pesticides include
insecticides, but also things like herbicides and fungicides. You know, they have these sort of
more focused names, but it’s important to realize that these chemicals can have impacts on other
organisms besides the target organism that they’re aimed at. And a lot of research is being
brought to light these days about the impacts of fungicides and herbicides on insects as well.
Non-native species are often an issue, so invasive species that either compete with native species.
And in truth, European honey bees are not native to North America. And while they are very
important to our agricultural systems, there’s also some evidence that they do compete
with our native pollinator species, especially in cases where there are limited resources.
And things that make the news like climate change can also be an issue. And often,
climate change causes often one of the big problems is what we call
phenology mismatch. So phenology is the timing of events, biological events. So if you think about a
plant, when did the leaves come out? When did they flower? When does it fruit the timing of those
events? It can also be sort of animal events. You know, how do they overwinter? What are the
larval stages when did they hatch? And sometimes organisms are sort of in sync in ideal conditions.
So the pollinators come out when there is food for them. And sometimes under climate change
conditions, the organisms don’t change at the same rate. And so now maybe the pollinators come
out when the flowers aren’t there yet or the flowers come out and the pollinators aren’t there yet,
which is then problematic for both groups of organisms. And then, you know, also sort of introduced
diseases. This is a long list at this point, but humans and the organisms that we move around
can carry diseases, viruses, bacteria, fungi, these kinds of things can move around and cause
problems with the organisms. So it’s really a combination of these things that are causing the
problems. And then maybe moving to why we should care is thinking about what really what these
organisms are doing in nature. And pollinators, we think about them one reason that I like to talk
about them in my classes is that I think they’re an amazing example of what we’ve mentioned a
couple of times, this ecosystem services. And maybe just to take a step back and define what
that actually is. So ecosystem services are basically the benefits that humans get from
functioning ecosystems. And these can be sort of classified into different categories. So
things like sort of really material benefits that we call provisioning services. So this is really
food and clean water and timber, natural oils, medicines that we get from nature.
And then there’s another class of benefits called regulating services. And these are things that
are provided sort of by ecosystem processes and how they regulate sort of natural phenomenon,
like preventing erosion and purifying our air and water and flood prevention, sort of these
categories of things, climate regulation, carbon fixation, sort of that class of things. And
then there are cultural services. And these are really kind of non-material
intangible kinds of things like cultural and intellectual and social benefits that I think
Luis can even speak more to the research in those areas. So I know we’ll come back to them.
But anyway, all of these ecosystem services only come to us from healthy functioning ecosystems.
And so when we have disturbances in biodiversity, so biodiversity loss
leads to imbalances in the system. And you lose stability, and you also lose resilience.
And so if you think about one metaphor that I really like is thinking about a Jenga game,
all those little blocks that you stack up. And the structure is created by the interaction of
all of those pieces in the stack. And as you start removing those pieces, the entire system
becomes unstable and could eventually collapse, basically. And so the more biodiversity you have,
the more resilience to change, you know, and the more stability you have, the more likely that
these ecosystem services will be provided for us. And pollination is an important one.
Yes. And I went to that. I can trust that. And pollination is a critical service in itself,
but then there is that cascading effect because when we look around at all the vegetation we love
in our world, and not certainly the native plants, if they’re flowering plants, they probably
are dependent on summer wind blown, dependent on wind blown pollination. But most of them depend
on the right insect showing up at the right times, Julia was saying to pollinate them in the spring.
And if you take that away, and then you start to, Julia was saying, let’s well, let’s take
this plant out of the ecosystem. And this one isn’t going to survive anymore. And then we got to
take out all these others. I heard, Julia, like about 70 percent of the plants we look around and see
the flower, they wildflowers and the shrubbery and trees here in the open space in Colorado,
depend on pollination. And so if you take them all out because we don’t have the pollinators anymore,
we have this cascading effect, then they’re not there to cool the temperature and slow the rainwater
runoff and perform all those other functions that plants play in our lives.
Is there really good service of beauty?
Yes, that’s a really good point, because often people think about food. When you talk about
pollination, it’s easy to relate the fact that most of our food, I think I’ve seen estimates
that one out of every three bites of food requires pollination. And so that’s often a little bit
easier for people to relate to, but also most of our ecosystems are also flowering plants requiring
pollination. That doesn’t often get as much attention. And often because there’s sort of multiple
steps between the act of pollination and the specific benefit that we’re receiving. And so I
think it’s important to understand those connections and those steps.
Yeah, that’s thank you for helping to paint that picture and connect those dots.
And one of the things I’m very excited about to hear early in 2021 is that this is the
beginning of the decade on ecosystem restoration among our entire global community as decided
through the United Nations body. And you know, it’s to me, it’s such an interesting set of
issues to think about because on the one hand, we’re talking about very complex systems.
And when it comes to ecosystems and particularly understanding the interactions between,
say, the kingdom of fungi and insects, our understanding has absolutely blossomed in the last
decade or two only. And really prior to that, we had a very rudimentary of entirely
lacking understanding. And it seems we’re going to learn a whole lot more in the coming years.
So there’s on the one hand this incredibly complex set of systems to think about in terms of
getting better at regenerating and being good stewards of these environments upon which, of course,
we all depend. On the other hand, there’s this growing sense of, I think, urgency and desire
in the general public to do whatever can be done to help with these issues. Recognizing it seems
by more and more folks that it doesn’t necessarily mean we all have to be PhDs and know all of the
complexities of particular ecosystem functions, but that it’s still really important and more over
that it’s super important. We’re all doing what can be done. So I guess that’s a bit of a
comment leading toward this question, which is what can we do and how are you guys mobilizing
at the beginning of this new year heading into this new decade to help activate more action
among the general public? I can start out a little bit, Louise, and I think one of the most
exciting things about this is there are a lot of very simple things that people can do really
starting with their own yards. If we think about how much space really our neighborhoods take up
and how much of that is covered, often agriculture maybe gets the brunt of concern,
and so people think, well, how am I supposed to change how industrial agriculture is done,
but if you realize that really our yards are the same sort of what we call monoculture,
just all one kind of plant, and so in the agriculture fields it’s our corn or soybeans or
whatever the main crop, and in our yards it’s our lawns. This green grass that has no benefit
really to to maintaining biodiversity, and so by making some simple changes and really
planting, increasing habitat, which is really just planting flowers, and thinking about how you do it
in a way that is specifically useful to the pollinators, but the nice thing about that is it’s
also beautiful, it beefies space, it often takes less water and less management on a day-to-day
basis than our lawns do, and so there’s sort of multiple benefits, and when you increase
habitat for pollinators it also benefits other beneficial insects, which then increases the
numbers of birds, and you have again this sort of cascading positive effects, and Louise can talk
more about sort of the mental impact of looking at a beautiful garden full of flowers, and you know,
so the human added benefits to that as well, so really making some small changes to the way
you manage your yard, increasing habitat, not using chemicals, sort of adjusting what we
think a beautiful yard is to being one that’s biodiversity could make a huge difference,
and then supporting groups like Peepan and Xerces who are trying to spread the word,
and so we have programs like our pollinators safe
neighborhoods, and you know, just our pollinator taking the pollinator pledge, which basically just
says you’re going to increase habitat in your yard and not use chemicals, then neighbors start
asking what you’re doing out there, and you can really get to spread the word that way, so those
are ones that I would think of right off the bat. That’s great, thank you Julian, and Louise,
is there anything you would add to that?
Yeah, well, yeah, so for one thing, some pollinators are generalists and will go for different
varieties of flowering plants, but in general it means native plants, going with native plants,
and is Julie mentioned that some water saving move because native plants evolved here in the
semi-arid west, and unfortunately we’re becoming more arid, and they’re more likely to be the
tough survivors here if we give them a chance, and I want to say how encouraging it is to take these
steps, you know, digging out a part of the lawn or taking, changing plants from distant parts
of the world that did not co-evolve with the wild bees and other native pollinators that we have
here, and replacing that space with native plantings, and certainly it can throw in some really
bright hybrids, and think of there too, I think many, it’s easy to get information on which ones
pollinators will be attracted to, but we see the results right away, and as Julie said, these
are flowering plants, they’re beautiful, but it’s really exciting when you plant it and they come.
For example, we did a, I mean in the age of A, but we got permission to put a pollinator garden
in the sunny west facing side of our townhouse, and this is it’s just raw, just planted.
I know it’s going to get more and more lush and abundant, but you know it’s just these individual
plants we had put in and just brought in from the nursery and stuck them in the ground, and they
were the bumblebees, and they were the bees, and there are the hummingbirds, and it’s just so
exciting to see those immediate results, and as Dave Goulson, who’s an internationally recognized
entomologist and an expert in insects, and especially bumblebees and native bees,
who’s been out here a couple of times, partnering with us with Peepan, and also as a keynote speaker
for our Colorado pollinator summit in 2020, as he points out, insects have a fast reproduction rate,
so you can make a real difference in their survival quite quickly, and then it’s also a matter
of connectivity as Julie was saying. If you, some, I understand Julie, and you would know more about
this, but I understand that some native bees don’t travel very far. They have relatively small
radius for foraging, but so if you plant, have a garden, and then your neighbor has a garden,
and a couple doors down the street, they have a garden, we’re creating that connectivity that
Julie was talking about, that was so important. In fact, as I was putting in my garden,
maybe a couple of neighbors further down our row, who’ve already done that, and it’s one of them
said, we’re planting a pollinator buffet, which is really what they need, so they’ve got a variety,
all that variety of different kinds of plants, and all within a short distance from each other,
we had at CU with our BEAT club, one of their activities was designing pollinator gardens for
parking lots, that’s just take away a couple, all it needs is the little strips where you have some
trees, let’s put pollinator friendly plantings in there, and manage it for that, or you
make a deal to take out a couple parking spots, and you’ve got a pollinator garden in there,
and it is, it’s more beautiful as well for people.
Thank you, that’s really got me excited thinking about some layered opportunities in our
communities really all around the world, and I have just made notes, I want to ask about
four important topics, kids, dandelions, HOAs, and parking lots in a moment, but first,
just want to take a pause to remind our audience that this is the Y on Earth community podcast,
I’m your host, Aaron William Perry, and today we’re visiting with both Louise Chawla and
Julie Morris, who are on the board of directors of People and Pollinators Action Network,
and of course, I want to mention you can connect with Pete Pan through their website,
it’s peopleandpollinators.org. On Facebook, it’s people and pollinators all spelled out,
same thing on Instagram, and when you go to the website, you can find the page to sign the
pollinator pledge, and if you’re here in Colorado, you can also sign the petition to create a new
Colorado pollinator license plate, which is great, I actually signed the petition earlier today
preparing for our discussion. I’d like to give a special shout out and thanks to the sponsors
and partners who make this podcast series possible, and that includes the LIDGE Family Foundation,
Earth Coast Productions, Alpine Botanicals, Purium, Earth Hero, Liquid Trainer, Vera Herbles,
Growing Spaces, Soil Works, 1% for the planet, Earthwaterpress, Dr. Bronners, and Waylay Waters.
Of course, they’re very special thanks to those folks who have joined our stewardship circle,
making generous donations to the support, the work that we’re doing, and to everybody in our
monthly contributor program. And if you haven’t yet joined, you can go to yhonourth.org,
click the donate button and set up a monthly recurring donation of any amount that works well
for you to support all of this work. If you choose to give out the $33 or greater level,
you’ll get a monthly delivery of our biodynamically grown CBD hemp infused aromatherapy soaking
salts as a way not only to support regenerative farms, but really to enhance your own personal
health and wellness practices, compliments of Waylay Waters. And I want to also give a quick
shout out that we have created a special coupon code, Peephan, P-P-A-N, which you can use at
yhonourth.org to purchase our Celebrating Honeybee’s Children’s book, which is printed,
and also comes as an ebook. And we’re going to be putting up prints of special artwork as part of
our whole new ambassador platform in 2021. And you can also get a 10% discount on any of those
prints like the one of the honeycomb you see behind me, or any of our other wonderful products.
And when you use the Peephan code, we will also donate 10% of those proceeds to Peephan to support
their efforts this year 2021. So with that, that’s a lot of different ways folks that you can engage
and get involved. Really, it’s so important that we’re all doing what we can in our communities.
And especially when it comes to the impacts on children. And you know, one of the things that
has sort of astounded me these past several years, learning more and more about important issues
with pollinators as well as with incredible toxification of our environments. And it’s not a stretch
nor hyperbolic to say that as a global society, we’ve effectively been waging chemical warfare on
the planet for something like 100 years now. Sometimes we call it agriculture, and sometimes we
call it beautification of the neighborhood. And you know, one of the great challenges we’re facing is
that indeed many homeowners associations, HOAs are actually requiring still some of these toxic
chemicals to be used in yards. And the link, I think, that is so important. We all understand is
that many of these toxic chemicals are particularly harmful to children and, of course, to pets.
And can damage the kids’ growth and development in their early years. And of course,
it’s kids often that are out, romping around in the yards, getting even more exposed to many of
these chemicals than us grownups might on our own. So I just, I want to get right into that
important point. You know, what do people need to know, do you think, about this issue of toxicity?
And even in a progressive place like Colorado, I still see people spraying poisons without any
personal protective equipment of their own around their yards, knowing their children right next
door and pets all over and so forth. So what do we do about this? What do people need to know about this?
People need to know that just a huge amount of chemical industry advertising has
lobbying has definitely tried to keep from our knowledge in terms of the
serious toxicity of these are example. I think many people think, well, if it’s in the marketplace,
if it’s on the shelf, it must be safe. And that’s safe. And the argument is industry that
it’s safe is used as directed. Of course, how many people before they start spraying screens on the
label? And I think most people don’t. But for example, Dave Goulson and his keynote speech
at the Colorado Polyneter Summit last fall noted that typically with agricultural spray,
about 5% actually gets on the target plant and penetrates the target plant. The rest of it
goes into the land in water. And if it goes into the land, it’s eventually going to go into the water
when there’s rain or when there’s the irrigation comes on. Same thing with our HOAs. If
they’re herbicides are lawns so that haven’t said don’t let the dandelion ever appear.
That is washing away into the, it would run off and into our creeks. And we know we have herbicides,
for example, in Boulder. We know we have herbicides and chemicals and some beyond the level
considered safe by the EPA that must be coming from people’s private yards because the city
doesn’t use them years ago. The city of Boulder stopped all toxic pesticides when sitting in
my hands in parks. The schools district doesn’t use them. They decide protecting the health
and safety of children and staff is more important. And the university stopped using them many
years ago for the same reasons. The moment you begin to sit down and read about the effects that
these pesticides have, it’s what I call an oh my god subject. When I began my work includes
creating places, designing places to connect children with a natural world. And ever since I was
a doctoral student, I was aware of that there are other people who think of the chemical environment
of children and adults that invisible environment we don’t see, but it’s still very much present for us.
And I began to read a bit about the effect of herbicides and insecticides on
green spaces. And what those risks in which as you say, Aaron, you could see the lawns,
children, young, run on, it’s the athletic playing fields. It’s the city parks in cities that
are still using these toxic chemicals freely. And
Oh, Louise, I think we’ve got a bit of a
so every age with children. There’s a bit of a
unstable connection. Yeah, if Louise is, I can build on that what Louise was talking about. And
also like another really important point about these chemicals is that they tend to persist
in nature. And so, you know, often what’s considered safe, you know, what they’ve done with safety,
you know, is at concentrations, specifically diluted concentrations. But the problem with these
chemicals is they persist in nature. So every time you keep putting them out there, the concentration
increases and increases. And so you start to see toxicities. And really the testing that’s been
done to call these safe is really sort of a short term thing. It’s not looking at the long-term
buildup of these things or their presence in nature or how they’re impacting other things.
We’ve been talking a lot about insects here, but also thinking about how these chemicals are
affecting the biodiversity in our soils. You know, we’re just beginning to understand how much
life is in our soil and how important that life is to the productivity of our agricultural systems
and also our ecosystems. And when you spray these things on the plant, you know, that there are
also a lot of non-target organisms in the soil that reduce the fertility and resilience of the
soil. So, you know, connected problems. And there’s sort of increasing understanding about
the potential impacts to human health. It’s not fully understood. But, you know, there’s
increasing understanding of this enough so that you’re starting to see movements to reduce the
amount of it. And I think it’s really important to raise awareness because I think most of the
problem comes from not understanding the multiple side effects. I think often people are focused on
the one thing, like I need the dandelions gone from my yard or what about those Japanese beetles
that are eating everything without thinking about the interconnections of everything. And I think
when you educate people about these things, they’re much more likely to change behaviors.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, echoing Brigitte Mars, the world renowned herbalist who’s
written some 14 books in his Honor Global Advisory Board during an episode that we did with her a
while back. She was encouraging folks to not spray the dandelions in particular. And, you know,
this is about a cultural bias, I guess, that so many of us still think that having dandelions
in the yard is somehow indicative of not being a good steward of the landscape. But it turns out
dandelions are among one of the most important early flowering plants, providing food and forage
to all manner of pollinators early in the season. And so this is in a way similar to the butterflies
and hummingbirds and bees that can be sort of the poster creatures for this movement. The dandelion
also, I think, can be one that we focus on as well. Yeah, it’s a bad point. I will say, though,
at our HRA, we’ve gone organic and we’ve had actually a beautiful lawn. What I’ve noticed for
when University of Colorado and Boulder went to organic, and it takes a couple years for what
just what Julie was saying for the soil. I wish you’d, I think, Louise, we’ve got another
interruption in the garden. It’s not so strong right now, Louise. I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry. I want to hear what you’re saying, but it’s just not coming through. It’s getting
all chopped up. I think what she was starting to say is that, you know, often when you start to
make these changes, it takes a couple of years for the soil to recover. And as the
health of the system comes back with the absence of these chemicals, then you see your plants
out competing the weeds. A healthy system is actually more balanced and more resistant to pests,
sort of leading into that idea. Yeah. So, Erin, just technologically, if I switch to my PC,
I’m on my laptop now. We’re, Louise, we’re toward the end of the discussion. Fortunately,
we’ve been able to, I think, get so much great information and inspiration from me both. So,
we’ll just have to kind of roll with it here and continue on to kind of wrap up in the next
few minutes. And yeah, this is part of the challenge, I guess, of the connectivity that
we’re experiencing and working with Zoom from time to time. We get a bit of this turbulence,
but I’m happy that most all of our conversation has come through really well. So, that’s positive.
And I’m just going to remind folks to be sure to go to peopleinpollinators.org to get a lot of
additional information and to engage with the organization, take the pollinator pledge. And,
you know, certainly, we can all be doing more in our own yards and neighborhoods. And, you know,
the thing, I’m really excited to think about as an opportunity for the Y-Earth community to
help at the national scale, and perhaps even beyond that, has to do with public spaces like
parking lots and also with homeowners associations. Even in a town like Boulder, I will cross-parking
lots and notice that there’s stones with nary a plant growing amidst them and they have the colored
stains of various herbicides and other toxic chemicals on those stones. And it’s really a shame
that in these parking lots scattered all around the country, not only are we not using them
to create pollinator habitat. In many cases, we’re dousing them with untold volumes of toxic
chemicals. And so, I think, you know, as communities become more aware and mobilize more around
these kinds of on-the-ground issues, those parking lots are one of the target areas we can probably
do a lot more. And similarly, with homeowners associations, this is an opportunity where a few
folks in leadership in a particular community can help transform what that HOA is all about
in becoming more a force for health and wellness and ecosystem restoration and less a force for
spring cancer causing toxins, basically. So, I’m really encouraged to hear Louise about the
pollinator garden that you guys did with your HOA and look forward to following up on that and
seeing what we can do in the coming months to help support more of these kinds of efforts. And so,
I’m so happy we’ve had this opportunity to visit today and I want to be sure to
give you an opportunity to say whatever else you might have to say, Julie. And
Louise, I hope we can get a good connection for you to make some concluding remarks as well.
But if not, we’ve already got a lot from you, which is wonderful. So, with that, Julie, let me ask,
if you have any, you know, final comments or remarks you’d like to share with our audience?
I think the most important take home message is that there are a lot that individuals can do.
And that if you want to take it to the next level, you know, you can become an advocate. You can
help raise awareness. You can take these issues to your HOA, to your community. You can
join with groups like Peepan to even, you know, lobby at state and national levels.
There’s lots of ways to be involved. And really, the most important thing you can do is change
your individual behaviors and spread the word to people around you. Sometimes that has the greatest
impact, the conversation with a neighbor. So, just being aware of the problem is a good start
and any tiny steps that you make help amplify the work that is being done elsewhere. You know,
if you think about the work that you’re doing in the yard, being an island that helps us increase
connectivity and amplify restoration efforts in our natural, some of our natural areas,
it’s just as important in your yard. I want to add just two things in closing, Erin.
For one, I want to go back to the question you asked me about the special vulnerability of
children and emphasize, again, the importance of avoiding the risks of avoiding its pesticides that
are harmful to people, pets and ecosystems. But why children are especially vulnerable?
Children’s bodies are in the process of forming. And if their mother is exposed to pesticides when
they are a child is developing in the womb, many pesticides are endocrine disruptors. And that
means that they can mimic the messages of our own hormones. And they do that at very, very low
doses because the doses of our own hormone messages are very slow. So we tend to think that
the more of a toxic chemical, the worse, but actually these chronic low levels can be exceedingly
dangerous. And so, pesticides are associated with childhood cancers, just as adults develop
cancers associated with pesticides too. But also, again, if their mother is exposed when she’s
carrying the child, it’s associated with low birth weights or preterm births or congenital
defects. And as with adults, asthma, lung diseases. But also for children, there’s a really special
risk of neurological disorder because their whole range system and nervous system throughout
their body is forming so rapidly. And if they’re exposed to pesticides in those early years,
there’s a lot of evidence that pesticides can contribute to autism and to lower IQ,
to attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, to a range of neurological disorders. So,
so that’s the answer to that question. But on the positive side, I just want to say again,
we can all do something at every scale. And the entomologist, Doug Callamy calls this
building living landscapes. So, if we change our practices from those habits of using toxic chemicals
and just eradicating native plants instead of fostering them around our homes and in our gardens,
then every piece matters that we can do it everywhere. We can do it in our homes. We can
green schoolgrounds and plant pollinator gardens there and do that teachers and children together.
We can do it in our churches and our university campuses and our cities and parks and our state
labs. And as you were saying, Aaron, you know, when when people do this, they’re setting an example
that other places can pick up and can can reproduce all across the country. And so,
let’s just all be part of that effort of building living landscapes.
With that, I want to thank you both for taking the time to to visit with me today and to have
this really important conversation with our why on our why on earth community audience and look forward
to collaborating more in the coming months as well. So, thank you both.
Thanks, Aaron. We really appreciate all the work you’re doing to raise awareness and spread the
word, you know, in all areas of sustainability and allowing us to bring up the plight of the
pollinators. The YonEarth community stewardship and sustainability podcast series is hosted
by Aaron William Perry, author, thought leader and executive consultant. The podcast and video
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