It’s official: Vancouver is a Bee City

Vancouver is officially a Bee City. In recognition of the importance of native bees, the Vancouver City Council unanimously adopted a resolution April 7 designating Vancouver as a Bee City USA affiliate.

Kyle Roslund from Vancouver Bee Project said the program’s goal is for the city to prioritize bee- and pollinator-friendly practices that help create critical habitat for bees, butterflies and other pollinator species.

Roslund said the designation comes with certain obligations for city officials.

“They have to do pollinator education annually, and they have to have events centered around pollinators and pollinator education,” he said. “They have to take a good look at their integrated pest-management plan and update it, and that is the plan that the city uses when they’re doing things like applying herbicides and pesticides.”

Roslund said the city is already doing much of the work required by the Bee City USA program and that the upcoming second annual Pollinator Festival on June 21 will be a celebration of that work.

“We’ve been doing the education stuff for a long time, and we’ve been planting a lot of native plants,” Roslund said.

Going forward, the city will continue to focus on education. Roslund wants residents to understand and appreciate the role bees play in our lives, as well as the risks and challenges they and other pollinators face.

“Pollinators have struggled in the last couple of decades. It’s kind of death by a thousand cuts,” he said. “There isn’t one reason; it’s really a combination of things. It’s urbanization, agricultural intensification, climate change, wildfires, poor air quality, and pesticide and herbicide use. All of these things impact pollinators.”

The city’s education efforts will also include which native plants to choose to best support pollinator species, Roslund said.

“We want a community that’s engaged and active and interested in these things, too. That’s a huge goal of ours,” he said. “We want people to have information to make good choices.”

Shari Phiel: shari.phiel@columbian.com; 360-562-6317; @Shari_Phiel

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