Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Additional Plants: flowers, native plants

• Animals: bees, other

• Ecosystem: Ecosystem

• Pollinators: habitat, honey bees, other

Target Pests

Practices

• Pest Management: chemical control, competition, habitat modification, mechanical control, precision pesticide use

• Crop Production: pollination/pollinator health/habitat

• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, indicators, wildlife

Project Summary

Pollinator populations are diminishing at an alarming rate across the world even as global agricultural systems become ever more reliant on them for food production.  The main drivers causing the depletion of pollinator populations and ecosystems include intense land management, pesticide use, and invasive species. A decline in pollinator abundance has serious implications on food supplies and ecosystems across the world.

The scale of conservation required to address pollinator population declines demands an unprecedented level of coordination across industry sectors, geographies, public and private organizations, and government agencies. The Rights-of-Way as Habitat Working Group (Working Group) is one such effort that engages over 500 organizations across the energy and transportation sectors, conservation community, agricultural industry, academia, and federal and state governments. The Working Group has grown rapidly over the past 5 years and become a leading resource for owners and managers of professionally-maintained, working landscapes— such as utility corridors, highways, and railroads—who are interested in increasing pollinator-oriented habitat conservation and adopting sustainable integrated vegetation management (IVM) practices.

Over the past three years, Working Group participants have prioritized their needs for increased institutional and management support of implementation of IVM and pollinator habitat conservation. The strategies to address these needs have been further refined through focused breakout sessions, peer-to-peer exchanges, a dedicated Communications and Outreach Task Force, and two annual surveys in 2019 and 2020. Working Group participants have consistently and overwhelmingly identified a cost-benefit calculator as the most needed tool to educate and influence decision makers at their organizations in favor of habitat conservation and IVM practices.

The UIC proposes the creation of a new Cost-Benefit Task Force to conduct an analysis of existing cost data and determine the feasibility for the future development of a cost-benefit calculator for energy and transportation lands. The objective is to aggregate existing data from Working Group industry partners and literature reviews of published studies for costs and quantifiable benefits associated with implementing IVM and pollinator habitat practices. This data will be analyzed to evaluate gaps and trends in costs and benefits, and to assess the feasibility of an industry wide cost-benefit calculator. Such a calculator would be instrumental in shaping internal communications to build buy-in and support for pollinator habitat conservation and IVM practices, demonstrating a solid business case, and increasing adoption rates of IVM and pollinator habitat practices across millions of miles of energy and transportation systems across the U.S. and Canada.

The objectives for the proposed project are to identify and aggregate available data for costs and quantifiable benefits associated with implementing IVM and pollinator habitat practices on energy and transportation lands. Also, to analyze this aggregated data to evaluate gaps and trends in costs and benefits, and to assess the feasibility of an industry wide cost-benefit calculator.