Some of us spend money, time and effort planting to help birds and pollinators survive, and yet homeowners who live around us undermine our efforts at every turn!  The unnecessary lawn chemicals and mosquito spraying decimate the pollinators we’re trying to save. Those of us who are planting for pollinators need protection.

If this is your situation too, take the frustration you feel and write one email and then send that email to every lawmaker, councilperson, and journalist you can find on the email address for on the internet. If you don’t, then my email is the only one they’ll get!  Every time you send an email about your experiences, you’re educating someone.  A journalist may take an interest and share the problem with a wider audience.  To make an idea stick it needs to be repeated 5 or 6 times, so let’s keep sharing and writing. 

I decided to send my email to Senator Hansen first because of the excellent work she’s doing to save wildlife and native plants in Delaware.
 
Dear Senator Hansen,
 
     Thank you for highlighting the crucial importance of native plants and their essential role in restoring habitat for birds and pollinators. We need an Ecological Extinction Task Force like yours in every state. Many people across the country are very concerned about the potential extinction of our pollinators and the lack of native plants in landscaping and we’re trying to make a difference in our own yards.
 
     I’d like to suggest an idea to help the homeowners who are working so hard to ‘Garden for Wildlife’. Let’s reward those that have pollinator and bird habitat yards with a tax break. We need incentives for doing the right thing!
 
     For example, the American Bee Project gives agricultural tax benefits for land used for European honey bee foraging. Why don’t we give tax breaks to homeowners who provide a place for our native pollinators to forage, breed, and nest safely?
 
     Pesticide drift is a real concern. Many pollinator gardeners need protection from their neighbors who spray for mosquitoes.  Science tells us there are much smarter and safer answers if there truly is a mosquito issue. Mosquito spraying for profit is a growing industry that is decimating our beneficial insect population.
 
      Likewise, nothing fits the ‘unnecessary’ category more than lawn chemicals which are completely uncalled-for and they destroy habitat for our ground-nesting bees. 70% of our native bees nest in the ground. These useless and dangerous chemicals kill pollinators many other beneficial insects.
 
     With the constant loss of habitat, pollinators and birds need to find sanctuary in our yards. Pollinator Friendly Yards are a part of the solution to a big problem and we need help and protection.  Pollinators and birds deserve to have a refuge in native-plant-habitat yards.
 
      Thank you for considering this. We can all work to save pollinators from extinction and we’ll be saving humanity in the process.
 
Leslie Nelson Inman
pollinatorfriendlyyards.com
Pollinator Friendly Yards on Facebook
 
Sources:
 
LINK: https://news.rutgers.edu/more-kinds-bees-better-humans-rutgers-led-study-finds/20180214#.W3t71tJKjrc
LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jan/16/biodiversity-extinction-tipping-point-planetary-boundary
LINK: https://sciencing.com/extinctions-other-creatures-affect-humans-directly-20692.html
Leaf blowers 300x more polluting than a car:
LINK: https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-ear-splitting-leaf-blower-it-also-emits-more-pollution-than-a-car-1513346400
9 billion gallons of water used a day on landscape watering
LINK: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-03/documents/ws-factsheet-outdoor-water-use-in-the-us.pdf
Some birds so stressed by noise it appears they have PTSD
LINK: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/01/09/some-birds-are-so-stressed-by-noise-pollution-it-looks-like-they-have-ptsd/?utm_term=.bba8e967fba2