Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Gunderson reported today that the Gopher State can Bee proud: Minnesota is among the best at protecting pollinators:
A new study puts Minnesota among the leaders nationally in addressing concerns about bee and butterfly populations.
[University of Missouri] assistant professor Damon Hall [and St. Louis University's Rebecca Steiner] analyzed every pollinator law passed by a state legislature between 2000 and 2017.
He found that legislatures were taking what he called "nascent and anemic steps in addressing a pollinator health crisis." And while no state legislature offered a stellar example of responding to pollinator population decline, Hall said, the efforts of a few states stood out.
"I would put Minnesota, California, Connecticut and Vermont among the leaders," he said. "And what I see is they're creating infrastructure and task forces and bodies to investigate insect pollinator health and insect pollinator conservation, but they're also generating funding mechanisms and appropriating funds to increase the capacity to do so." . . .
While Gunderson's local source Willa Childress, an organizer for the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), stresses the work of the Governor's Committee on Pollinator Protection, which was created by Executive Order 16-07 by former Governor Mark Dayton, the Hall and Steiner study focused on state legislative action.
Still, Minnesota earned high praise from Hall himself.
In January 2019, Xerces Society's Bee City USA Blog reported in States Increasingly Pass Laws to Protect Pollinators!:
Perhaps the most comprehensive habitat protection signed into law (MN HF976, 2013) is Minnesota’s Pollinator Habitat Program, requiring the Commissioner of Agriculture to develop best management practices and habitat restoration guidelines for pollinator habitat enhancement, and report to the agriculture and natural resource legislative committee. The report, developed in collaboration with the Pollution Control Agency, Board of Water and Soil Resources, and representatives of the University of Minnesota, must include proposals for establishing a “pollinator bank” to preserve pollinator species, creating “pollinator nesting and foraging habitat…including establishment of pollinator reserves or refuges,” and "provide criteria to evaluate neonicotinoid pesticides."
As Americans complain that the government is often gridlocked at the national level, Hall says, “I wanted to see the actual points of agreement at state levels around insect pollinator conservation. In so doing, we could argue that these more than 100 policies passed by state legislatures constitute points of consensus worth exploring for national policies and international agreements. After all, sustaining pollinators crosses rural and urban, and left and right, divides.”
HF 976 was the 2013 Omnibus environment, natural resources, and agriculture finance and policy bill, authored by Democratic Minneapolis state representative Jean Wagenius.
We posted earlier this session about this legislation in Dale Lueck concern trolls Lee about DNR public land pollinator food plots--gets stung by Hansen. Representatve Fue Lee's bill, HF721 is a bill intended to promote pollinators by preventing neonicotinoid use on wildlife management areas. Hansen notes that the bill would supplement the 2013 legislation.
At the time, the DFL Caucus controlled the Senate; we'll be curious to see how bills make their way through a divided legislature--and how well "relationships among diverse groups from farmers to beekeepers to environmental groups that are helping move legislation" that Childress mentions hold up, given the partisan pressure cooker now heating up in St. Paul.
Here's the article, posted with Dr. Hall's permission. If an index to the article appears as an overlay over the document, click on the square on the upper lefthand corner of the embedded file and it should hide itself).
If you use this report, here's the citation:
Hall, D. M., & Steiner, R. (2019). Insect pollinator conservation policy innovations: Lessons for lawmakers. Environmental Science & Policy, 93, 118-128.
The Bee City USA Blog provided a link to the database of laws in the study here.
Photo: A rusty patched bumblebee. Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division chair Rick Hansen, DFL-S. St. Paul, introduced HF2070 on Monday, which would make the endangered little species Minnesota's state bee. Photo via US Fish and Wildlife Service.
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