A new white paper, drafted by 135 researchers linked to eight European Union-funded projects, presents 15 recommendations to halt the decline of wild pollinators and safeguard the health of honeybee colonies and other pollinators used in beekeeping and agricultural production. The document identifies the fragmentation of public policies and governance structures as a major obstacle to the recovery of these populations.
Published as a preprint and slated for publication in the journal Advances in Pollinator Research, the work brings together contributions from the projects Butterfly, VALOR, PollinERA, WildPosh, AGRI4POL, ProPollSoil, RestPoll, and Safeguard.
Pollinators are essential for the reproduction of wild and cultivated plants, for ecosystem resilience, and for food security. Their loss can also affect economic chains dependent on flowering plants, including the textile, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and tourism sectors.
According to the authors, the decline results from the interaction of multiple pressures, such as land-use changes, unsustainable agricultural and forestry practices, pesticides, other contaminants, light pollution, and climate change. Therefore, the response should not be limited to isolated conservation measures but must also encompass underlying social, economic, and political factors.
The document highlights the incoherence between policies on agriculture, environment, chemicals, trade, planning, research, and education. Dispersed responsibilities, poor coordination between administrations, and conflicts between short-term productive goals and the maintenance of pollination as a public good reduce the effectiveness of the measures adopted.
Another central focus is the strengthening of pollinator literacy, both in general education and in the training of professionals whose decisions affect these species. Conservation measures often tend to prioritize flowers and nectar sources while ignoring other life cycle requirements. The larvae of moths, butterflies, beetles, and flies may depend on host plants, organic matter, or prey, while some bee species require specific nesting conditions.
The 15 recommendations include the creation of measurable targets in European policies, the strengthening of monitoring, the restoration and connection of habitats, long-term agri-environmental incentives, the diversification of crops and seed mixtures, the reduction of reliance on pesticides, and a more integrated assessment of environmental risks. The roadmap also advocates for the articulation between climate and biodiversity policies and the creation of cross-sectoral financial incentives.
These priorities relate directly to research already conducted at CESAM, such as the POLLINATE project, which studied whether the sustainable application of certain biochars to the soil could contribute to recovering pollinator habitats in sown biodiverse grasslands. The project integrated knowledge from ecology, environmental chemistry, and ecosystem engineering and management.
The new European roadmap thus provides a public policy framework to deepen the link between soil health, agricultural practices, habitat restoration, and pollinator conservation.
Document: van der Sluijs, J. P. et al. (2026). Towards pollinator stewardship in all policies: Policy incoherence in the EU is a major barrier to pollinator restoration. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20715670