PolinizAÇÃO Project advances in the co-construction of the Action Plan for Pollinator Conservation

The first meeting of the consultative group of the Pollinization project took place on September 19th at the headquarters of the Associated Laboratory TERRA at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, bringing together representatives from various ministries and entities linked to nature conservation and biodiversity, such as the Institute of Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF). This meeting marked an important step in co-constructing an Action Plan for the Conservation and Sustainability of Pollinators in Portugal.

Coordinated by CFE and financed by the Environmental Fund, Ministry of Environment and Energy, and ICNF, the Polinização project's main objective is to create an Action Plan that defines concrete measures for the sustainability and conservation of pollinating insects in Portugal.

During the meeting, the consultative group, which includes representatives from the Ministries of Environment and Energy, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Territorial Cohesion, as well as regional development and territorial cohesion institutions, scientific entities, producer associations and non-governmental organisations ( NGOs), discussed the structure and content of the Action Plan. For Sílvia Castro, coordinator of the Polinização project, «bringing together all stakeholders in the territory is crucial for developing an effective action plan with prospects for implementation».

This first session focused on contextualizing the importance of pollinators and collecting contributions from interested parties to define priorities and implementation strategies. The dialogue between the different entities at this first meeting reinforced the importance of interministerial and multisectoral cooperation to guarantee the conservation of pollinators in Portuguese territory.

In the coming months, the advisory group will continue to work on validating the proposed actions to strengthen the support network necessary to implement the Pollinator Action Plan effectively.

In addition to the Action Plan, the project stands out for the strong involvement of citizens with two citizen science initiatives: one integrated into the BioDiversity4All platform (iNaturalist) and the other through the FITCount application. Thanks to these initiatives, Polinização established a partnership with the European project More4Nature, which promotes citizen science initiatives as innovative pathways for the co-production of data and knowledge, empowering citizens for sustainable management of natural resources.