Planning

POLLINATOR CORRIDORS

Pollinator Corridors

Pollinator corridors are networks of trees, shrubs, grasses and flowering plants that provide food and habitat for pollinators throughout the year. They support a wide range of species, including native bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and nectar-feeding birds. By linking gardens, parks, nature strips and public open spaces, pollinator corridors help create connected habitats across Canberra's urban landscape.

Many native bee species forage only a few hundred metres from their nests, meaning isolated patches of flowers may be beyond their reach. Connected plantings help pollinators move through the landscape and access the food resources they need close to home.

Summer and early autumn are peak activity periods for many pollinators, making it especially valuable to include plants that provide nectar and pollen during the warmer months. By choosing a diverse range of plants with overlapping flowering periods, Canberra gardeners can help create a network of 'bee banquets' that support pollinators across the seasons while contributing to a more biodiverse and resilient city.

Ginninderry Conference

ACT for Bees and Other Pollinators has been working with the Ginninderry development in West Belconnen to incorporate pollinator corridors into the planning and design of the new community. We are delighted to have support from the ACT Government for this initiative, which aims to improve habitat connectivity for pollinators while contributing to broader biodiversity outcomes across the region.

In April 2021, we hosted a successful conference that brought together professionals from urban design, landscape architecture, planning and development, as well as representatives from government and industry.

The conference explored the role of pollinator-friendly planting in creating more sustainable, biodiverse and productive urban environments. Speakers and participants shared insights into the opportunities, challenges and practical considerations involved in integrating pollinator habitat into urban planning and development.

Planting for
Pollinators

Julie Armstrong - Founder
ACT for Bees and Other Pollinators

An overview of the issues for pollinators and what we can all do to support their health in Australian urban environments.

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Biodiversity needs bees

Cormac Farrell
Environmental Scientist

Cormac Farrell has advised on the plant species best suited for pollinator corridors with his extensive experience as an environmental scientist and beekeeper. He is also known as the Chief Beekeeper for the Australian Parliament House and oversees many beehives around Canberra. His presentation is focused on maintaining and enhancing diverse, productive pollinator networks in urban environments.

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Planning Pollinator Corridors

Matthew Frawley
Landscape Manager

A very good overview of Ginninderry development, and how they are creating a sustainable community of international significance in the Capital region. It will be sustainable over time, socially, economically and ecologically with a low and reducing ecological footprint: Ginninderry is the first development in the ACT to plant pollinator corridors in its planning process.

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Plants & Landscaping

Karin Kemp  and Olivia Ward

Karin Kemp of Redbox Design Group Landscape Architects outlines the details of how they planned for planting for year-round flowering for native bees at Ginninderry. Olivia shows a beautifully designed native bee hotel and pollinator garden at Kingston shops ACT.

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Urban Planting Calendar

Rachael Dawes

Rachael Dawes, head of the ACT Government Urban Treescapes designs and plans the extensive roadside planting in the ACT. Her presentation shows the wide range of resources available to guide the choice of plants for our gardens, school gardens and wider community including food for pollinators, habitat for local wildlife, cooling and cleaning the air, improving the liveability of our streetscapes and enhancing community wellbeing.

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Urban Forest Strategy 2021

Stephen Alegria

Stephen Alegria, Executive Branch Manager ACT Government City Services | Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate outlines the just released ACT Government Urban Forest Strategy with a focus on cooling the urban environment and supporting biodiversity.

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Heat mapping project

Cameron Pensini and Christine Ramplin

Climate adaption Guided Tree Selection for the Queanbeyan Palerang Shire Council Region. Important data being collected using surface heat mapping to show the effectiveness of tree canopy to cool urban areas, particularly Queanbeyan, Bungendore and Braidwood.

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Community support

Julie Armstrong - Founder
ACT for Bees and Other Pollinators

Julie outlines the success of projects that ACT for Bees and Other Pollinators has activated with others to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators and inspiring action. ‘Love Food? Love Bees!’ Australian curriculum-aligned resources created with Cool Australia have buzzed into schools to create change. Being active in World Bee Day celebrations has brought together ‘bee friendly’ actions throughout the community to take care of our local pollinators.

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Australian National Botanic Gardens Conference

Maximising biodiversity by supporting pollinators

ACT for Bees and Other Pollinators and Landcare ACT hosted this event on 22 February 2020 in the aftermath of the devastating 2019–20 bushfire season. The fires burned more than 10 million hectares across Australia, causing significant impacts on communities, wildlife and natural ecosystems. While the effects on insect populations were not fully quantified, pollinators are essential to the reproduction of many native plants and play a critical role in maintaining healthy, resilient ecosystems.

The event examined the importance of pollinators to biodiversity, food production and ecosystem health, and considered the challenges facing pollinator populations in Australia and around the world. Discussions highlighted the impacts of bushfires, drought, habitat loss and other environmental pressures on native bees, European honey bees, butterflies, birds and other pollinating species.

A key message from the event was that urban gardens, parks and other green spaces can provide valuable habitat and food resources for pollinators. By planting diverse, pollinator-friendly gardens and maintaining connected green spaces, communities can help support biodiversity and contribute to the recovery and resilience of local ecosystems.

How to create urban refuges

Michael Fox

Great ideas from Pollinator Link about how to create urban refuges for pollinators. Bringing Bees, Birds, Butterflies back into our gardens. 

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Planting & saving seeds

Arian McVeigh

Arian McVeigh from the Canberra Seed Savers talks on saving seeds through sharing and linking with our local community. Seeds are fundamental to our lives and do not exist without a pollinators. By planting the right type of seeds, and not using chemicals, we can easily enhance our local biodiversity. Open pollinated heirloom seeds are owned by the community and represents the heritage of several generations in our local region. A living seed bank, planting the same plants over and over again, will adapt to our local conditions and produce the best possible crop whilst working with nature and our pollinators..

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Nature in the city

Janine Baines - Horticulturist

Janine Baines, part of the horticulture team at the ANBG speaks on planning for planting for our pollinators in our gardens.
Where do you start? Create an upper story for shade, then plant underneath. Plant in spring and autumn. Provide water bowls for bees and birds and various heights. Plant for successional flowering and year round protection. Observe your plants and fill in the gaps! With the right plants you can get flowers for up to 10 months of the year.

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Pollinator Policies

Caroline Le Couteur
ACT Government MLA

Ms Le Couteur talks about current policies in this space. We know that there are a decline in trees in our urban environment for various reasons. How do we fix this? Community support, political pressure are two key drivers of change. Projected plantings are to increase but our new suburbs don't have enough green space. Planting now permitted on verges, so please plant for pollinators along your street. 

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Importance of planting trees

Ms Nicole Lawder
ACT Governemt MLA

Ms Lawder MLA shared the importance of planting 10s of thousands of trees to replace the older and dying trees in our region. We are losing more trees than are being planted and there is a trend towards increasing hard spaces. We have lost more than 10% of our tree canopy, and flowering trees are important for pollinators and also for general cooling. This is something that we need to focus on going forward. Planting more trees and increasing canopy cover for the benefit for all of us.

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City living for pollinators

Cormac Farrell
Environmental Scientist

Environmental scientist, Cormac Farrell, specialises in developing bushfires resistant landscapes, is head bee keeper at Parliament House and has many other hats. He highlights the need to use our Canberra gardens as a living refuge, especially in times of drought and bushfires. Native wildlife corridors, street trees, and garden planting are vital to provide an integrated system to protect our local pollinators. A key opportunity is to monitor our pollinators through Citizen Science, such as the Wild Pollinator Count, is key to providing the data which influences how we conserve our wildlife.

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Climate variability

Prof. Saul Cunningham - Researcher

Prof. Saul Cunningham is a researcher at the ANU studying, mostly crop pollination and bees. Climate variability is right now at the forefront of our minds. We need to worry about native bees and pollinators that have a small distribution, such as the Great Carpenter Bees from Kangaroo Island. In dry climates we need a broader range of vegetation and flowering plants, to support species richness. Native bees are totally flower dependent and, like plants, their populations vary annually which reflects climate variability - so don’t panic! Only long-term research can reflect this resilience and highlight broader patterns.

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Plant species for urban landscapes

 Rachel Dawes

Rachel Dawes, continues the discussion on Urban Trees and plantings, and what they are doing to monitor in the ACT. Many considerations go into selecting the right species, wind, existing structures, light, hardiness, drainage, people and more. Also, retaining the habitats in the remaining trees is vital!

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Planning resources

Act for Bees Pollinators

Beneficial insect and flowering calendar

The flowering native vegetation by month in correlation with the beneficial insects peak activity periods - common across VIC Ecological Vegetation Classes.
Act for Bees Pollinators

The city as a refuge for insect pollinators

A research report on urban bee species diversity and abundance to determine how urban conservation could be repositioned to better align with new views on the ecological importance of urban landscapes.
Act for Bees Pollinators

Booklet - Improving on farm IPM through biodiversity

Planting native vegetation for beneficial insects and improving farm integrated pest management through biodiversity .
Act for Bees Pollinators

Connecting fragmented pieces of habitat can help endangered species recover

A study suggesting that connecting fragmented forests and fields with corridors of suitable habitat can help save populations and species. scientists ever thought.
Act for Bees Pollinators

Why protect pollinators

Bushfires: can ecosystems recover from such dramatic losses of biodiversity?
Act for Bees Pollinators

5 Vital roles insects play in our ecosystem

As insect populations plummet, scientists show what the world would lose if bugs disappear.
Act for Bees Pollinators

Where have all the insects gone?

Bugs aren’t just occasional nuisances, they’re crucial to the environment. Now populations of species worldwide are falling at alarming rates.