Photo credit: Janelle St. Pierre

By Janelle St. Pierre, Portland Parks and Recreation

This article is about the Pollinator Habitat Best Management Practices Collaborative Meeting that occurred on 8/3/2017. 

There is a buzz of activity in the Portland Metro Region!  In early August, a group of 40 pollinator enthusiasts came together, representing a range of interests, including community volunteers & activists, academics, consultants, nonprofits, as well as multiple local, state, and federal agencies. In a session facilitated by Samara Group and Portland Parks & Recreation, the participants worked on developing a framework that gathers the collective wisdom on key components for creating pollinator habitat across multiple scales and types of projects. The group also looked at opportunities for community engagement in pollinator projects. The information that was gathered at this meeting will be used to create a shared resource that will help identify needs and direct future efforts for pollinator habitat projects.

This meeting brought together participants from (but not limited to) the following initiatives:

• The Pollinator Working Group, a subset of the Intertwine Alliance Conservation Working Group:http://www.theintertwine.org/projects/conservation-working-group
• The Pollinator Collective: A group of Portland Metro Area pollinator enthusiasts that are working on developing a network and resources that can be shared by the community:https://www.facebook.com/pollinatorcollective/
• The Pacific Northwest Urban Meadowscaping (PNUM) working group, which was formed to work with landowners to create alternatives to the traditional lawn and ended up creating this great resource:https://wmswcd.org/projects/the-meadowscaping-handbook/
• The Oregon Bee Project: A collaborative project between Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Agriculture:http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/beeproject/