This week is Pollinator Week in Canada but also in the rest of the world. The celebration has been going on for more than 10 years now and it aims at focusing everyone’s attention on the important role that pollinators play in our lives and in our environment.

It also aims at spreading the word about what we can do to protect those animals.

To understand exactly what pollinator week is, we spoke to Vicki Wojcik, Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada.

Bees are not the only pollinators. (Anthony Colangelo/Pollinator Partnership)

What’s pollinator week?

This celebration officially started twelve years ago with the U.S. Senate’s unanimous approval and designation of a week in June as “National Pollinator Week”.

It started as an awareness effort focused on policy makers in the United States. The goal was to get bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to pollinators and think of that when they’re building policies.Vicki Wojcik, Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada

But it quickly gained momentum. Soon it included public activities and initiatives from across North America because pollinators do not have political boundaries, as Wojcik explains:

[Pollinators] exist throughout ecosystems which intersect political boundaries and we’ve been working with Canada, the U.S. and Mexico as a North American effort to conserve pollinators.Vicki Wojcik, Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada

Today, the celebration even crossed oceans. For the 2019 edition, events are being organised in Bermuda, China, Europe and Africa, for example.

But most of them are still held in North America. This initiative within the non-profit sector is widely considered a model in Asia, Africa and Asia.

What happens during Pollinators week is often a lot of really great fun and awareness activities.Vicki Wojcik, Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada

All events are on an interactive map. Take a look to see if anything is happening near you in the next few days.

Click on the map to see if an event is happening near you. (Screenshot from Pollinator.org)

For example, the director of Pollinator Partnership Canada talks about pollinator and bee safaris at the Edmonton Valley Zoo, in Toronto or at the Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden.

A “bee safari” is a pollinator identification walk where a biologist or a scientist takes a group of people for a walk in a botanical garden or somewhere else and they identify bees.

Really similar smaller scale model as if you would just get into a jeep in a safari and hope that you find some zebra and some giraffes, here we’re looking for bumblebees and monarch butterflies and all of that.Vicki Wojcik, Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada

https://www.facebook.com/edmontonvalleyzoo/posts/2750226848382552

Among the events, there are many gardening associations and groups across the country that have also opened garden tours as well as native plants planting days and this year’s edition has a special aspect to it as Wojcik explains.

We actually have a couple of restaurants, bars and other food vendors hosting special events that highlight the important role that pollinators have in our food. One of every three bite that we eat is the result of a pollinator so our diet will not look the same without them.Vicki Wojcik, Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada

Everyone can host its own event by registering it to the pollinator.ca or pollinator.org.

Pollinators can be bees but also bats or mosquitoes

When we think of pollinators, we usually think of bees, but many animals act as pollenizers. The Director of Pollinator Partnership Canada defines pollinators.

A pollinator is any animal that would visit a flower and transfer the pollen from one flower to another, helping that plant reproduce.