MANSFIELD — President Barack Obama published a fact sheet in June 2014 aimed at educating the general public on decreasing pollinator populations in the United States.
As a result, a buzz has grown surrounding the honeybee and other pollinators. Gorman Nature Center Executive Director Jason Larson decided last year to respond to that buzz. His solution was to host a an educational Richland County Park District Pollinator Festival.
This year, the festival began Saturday, June 25 and went through Sunday, June 26.
“There’s such a big buzz around pollinators and that has made people more aware of honeybees. But there are thousands of native pollinators, too,” Larson said. “They’re beneficial to our gardens — if there is no low food chain, there’s no high food chain.”
Larson said he hopes the Pollinator Festival becomes Gorman Nature Center’s signature event each year with more vendors and educational programs stemming from the weekend in the future.
One of the vendors present Sunday was the Richland Area Beekeepers Association.
“Our purpose is to help with beekeeping and help them (new beekeepers) what to look for and expect when starting out,” said Pamela Ellis, one of the association’s chairpersons.
Aligning with Larson’s fact that Ohio houses thousands of pollinators, Jennifer Hurst said there are 400 different types of bees in Ohio.
“If those bees, and other pollinators, don’t stay healthy, we could lose a third of the variety of foods we enjoy,” Hurst said.
“We eat well in this country,” she continued. “And I don’t begrudge the agriculture industry, but producing only corn and soybeans in large quantities has consequences.”
She explained that monoculture fields of corn and soybeans could destroy the natural habitats of pollinators, which include animals such as bats, birds, monarch butterflies, moths, humming birds and different insects.
“So much of our food is dependent on pollinators. Monocultures scare me,” Hurst said.
Ellis added that a simple solution would be to plant native flowers and plants in yards and gardens.
“Eliminate the green deserts, which are lawns. Let the dandelions grow,” Ellis suggested.
Zane Sexton of Marion, 18, agreed. The teen joined Natives in Harmony, a wildflower nursery from Marion, two weeks ago in an effort to learn more about native plants that are beneficial to pollinators.
“A month ago I thought most of these plants were just weeds. But they’re all important to pollinators,” he said, pointing to the different plants available for sale in a tent outside the Gorman Nature Center.
Sexton said Natives in Harmony sells over 238 genotypes — and all of them are beneficial to pollinators from Ohio.
“We’ve got to get the word out,” Larson said of the decreasing population of pollinators. “I hope this program grows so that we can educate others.”
Gorman Nature Center is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is closed on Sunday. The six miles of hiking trails on the 150 acres of property are open from dawn to dusk daily.
