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Have you completed a habitat restoration project designed to improve connectivity for pollinators or other wildlife species? Pollinator Pathway is collaborating with Follow the Forest and other connectivity initiatives throughout the Northeast to collect your stories. We hope to learn from the work you’ve done, build upon our networks, and spotlight your stories on our websites, social media pages, and promotional materials. Examples of restoration efforts improving pollinator pathways and terrestrial or aquatic connectivity include: · Creating pollinator gardens from native plants, · Invasive species removal, · Working with your neighbors to spread local awareness of connectivity needs, · Reforestation efforts, · Advocating for more green spaces in your town / working with your planning and zoning board to create infrastructure that poses fewer stressors to migrating wildlife, · Barrier removal in streams to improve fish passage etc. Have you completed any of these types of projects? This can be on your own land, in your town, or in partnership with an environmental organization or other entity. What inspired you to undertake the project? Who did you collaborate with? What were the challenges you encountered and what did you learn from the experience? Did you receive funding to complete this project? Ideally, these stories would be in the form of a short blog post about 300-500 words long with a few images included. In the interest of time, however, you can also send us bullet points or an existing document or press release outlining your project and a contact name for quotes. Please email your stories to Follow the Forest’s Paul Mailhot-Singer at paul.mailhotsinger@gmail.com. Ideally, we would like to receive submissions before 9/1, but we are open to content at any time. We will likely include some stories right away and then add more over time.

Vote here to help the Pollinator Pathway become Fairfield County Bank's Charity of the Month. You can help us win $1000 by voting every day in July.

Our friends at the Massachusetts Pollinator Network have put out a call to action! Here is the MAPN template for calls or letters to your Massachusetts state representative asking for support of three bills that would improve pollinator health: H.4603, an Act to Protect Pollinator Habitat and H.4600, An Act Relative to Pesticides, are both currently before House Ways and Means. Section 48 of S.2842, the “Pollinator Adder” to the Climate Bill, is currently in conference committee. Find your legislators here!

Congress seems ready to pass the Recovering America's Wildlife Act (RAWA), described by New York Times writer Margaret Renkl as "the single most effective tool in combating biodiversity loss since the Endangered Species Act." Pollinators would be included in the species helped by this legislation. Read Renkle's OpEd here. Watch the National Wildlife Foundation's informational video here. The House passed the the bill last week with bipartisan support, and now it heads to the Senate where it has 16 Republican co-sponsors. Let's support this bill by contacting our senators and asking them to support RAWA! And thanking them if they are co-sponsors! Find your senators' emails here.

Widespread and wasteful use of neonicotinoid pesticides drives dramatic declines in bees and other pollinators, which threaten the production of crops like apples, the food security of millions of people, and the nation’s ecosystems. Neonics also contaminate water on a vast scale and are increasingly linked to countless other harms, including the disappearance of birds, the collapse of fisheries, and birth defects in white-tailed deer. Neonics extensively contaminate our bodies too, with a growing chorus of state health experts raising alarms about neonics’ risks to human health. Watch this short film for more information. Maine and New Jersey have banned neonics for non-agricultural uses, and Europe has passed broad bans that include agricultural. New York came close this year to passing the Birds and Bees Protection Act, which would restrict neonic use in the state, both cosmetic and agricultural uses. After stalling in the Assembly in 2021, the bill passed there in April by a vote of 103-41—buoyed by a strong showing of health experts, advocates, farmers, and concerned New Yorkers at a September 2021 Assembly hearing. In the Senate, the bill made it all the way to the floor, where it had passed last year by a vote of 43-20. This year, however, the bill did not come up for a vote. In the end, advocates won the argument that restrictions on uses of neonics—the most ecologically damaging pesticides since DDT and a growing concern for human health—are common sense. Ultimately, however, it appears that election-year concerns about passing a bill strongly opposed by the chemical industry prevailed. Despite the setback, the need to rein in harmful neonic use remains undiminished. We’re heartened by the progress New York made this year—including an early 2022 announcement by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that it would make most outdoor neonic pesticides “restricted use” by 2023—and we hope to help move the ball even further next year. ("Restricted use" means only licensed pesticide applicators can use the pesticides, but that includes most landscaping companies, golf courses, and farms.) Thank you to the NRDC for supporting the Birds & Bees Protection Act and for providing the information in this blog, including the following: · Neonic exposure is linked to neurological damage and malformations of the developing human heart and brain—and CDC monitoring shows half the U.S. population has neonics in their bodies on any given day. Dozens of New York health experts have warned state leaders about neonics’ threats to New Yorkers’ health. · State and federal water testing finds neonics extensively contaminate New York’s waters at levels expected to cause “ecosystem-wide damage,” and since most tests only look for 1 of 5 neonics used in New York, even these alarming results greatly underestimate the true extent of the problem. · In-depth Cornell University research reveals that the neonic uses targeted by the bill—neonic-treated corn, soybean, and wheat seeds and non-agricultural lawn and garden uses—either don’t benefit users or are easily replaced with safer alternatives. These needless and harmful uses account for 80-90% of the neonics entering New York’s environment every year.

A few of the nurseries that are involved with Eco59 and CT NOFA's Ecotype Project have put together an end of spring plant sale at the The Hickories Farm in Ridgefield, CT. They are offering seed grown ecotypes, certified organic ecotype seedlings, plug trays - a whole mix of different growers/growing practices/tray sizes/price points/etc. It runs from now until June 25th. On that day, the Pollinator Pathway’s Garden Tours are running all over Connecticut, one of which will be at The Hickories where you can tour the seed farm. Use this late season plant sale to fill in any gaps in your garden before summer gets underway. Join the Pollinator Pathway for a tour of Eco59 seed production and pickup your order of native seedlings at The Hickories. Order Your EcoType Project Plants Today for Pickup June 25 at the Hickories Organic Farm in Ridgefield, CT More Information Here

Thank you to everyone who helped get a new pesticide bill passed in CT. The bill will ban chlorpyrifos from golf courses, where it is still widely used in CT despite the EPA's banning it from use on food products. This pesticide is notorious for its extreme toxicity. It is known to harm children's developing brains and is listed as one of five pesticides most toxic to bees. The restrictions on pollinator-killing neonics were stricken from the bill before the House vote, so PLEASE JOIN US NEXT YEAR WHEN WE RAISE A NEW BILL IN CT TO RESTRICT NEONICS! We cannot do this work without you.

For Earth Week, CBS news profiled two of the original organizers of the Pollinator Pathway in a not-yet-cleaned-up backyard in Norwalk, CT. #leavetheleaves! The spot was focused on waiting to clean up, loving a messier yard, and No Mow May! Hundreds of people from across 30 states who saw the segment emailed to join. Welcome everyone. Watch the short clip here.

We have a bill, much like the one that just passed in New Jersey, to ban the most harmful neonicotinoids from use on commercial and residential landscapes. These pesticides are known to harm pollinators, birds, fish, pets and people. Let's get them off of lawns, golf courses, and commercial landscapes. It is time to call your state senator and state assemblyman (find them here) and ask them to PLEASE SUPPORT SB 120. Read a sample script and more information about the bill here. Read more about neonics here and chlorpyrifos, the other pesticide this bill addresses, here.

Help pass the NY Birds & Bees Protection Act in 2022! Spread the word by signing, downloading, and sharing this petition. If you are tabling, use this QR code or print out this sheet to collect signatures the old fashioned way. Here is a fact sheet on the bill. Also join an in-person lobby day in Albany on Wednesday, April 27 in support of the Birds and Bees Protection Act.