Protecting and restoring Europe’s wild pollinators and their habitats

This briefing provides an overview of wild pollinators, the main drivers of their decline and solutions to protect and restore them. It highlights the importance of establishing an EU-wide standardised monitoring framework of pollinators. The briefing is published in the context of the Nature Restoration Regulation, the EU Pollinators Initiative and the European Commission’s Vision for Agriculture and Food.

Key messages

• Europe’s wild pollinators are essential for ecosystem resilience and food production. Around 84% of crop species in the EU depend on insect pollination.
• There is strong evidence of a dramatic loss of wild pollinators, including wild bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths; this decline puts at great risks the pollination service they provide and could severely affect nature and food security.
• Protecting and restoring pollinators and their habitats needs decisive actions across different geographical and governance levels, economic sectors and society.
• Pollinator-friendly management of agroecosystems and forests, conserving semi-natural habitats and reducing pesticide use, combined with targeted nature conservation and restoration, are the key solutions.
• The Nature Restoration Regulation requires Member States to improve pollinator diversity and reverse their population decline. It also foresees establishing a comprehensive pollinator monitoring framework with standardised sampling methods. The framework will provide high-quality data at species level, essential for assessing progress towards the restoration target.