Threats to Australia's wild bees

Around sixteen hundred and fifty species of bees indigenous to Australia have been identified through western science and it’s estimated that well over a thousand are yet to be described. As bulldozers clear even more land and wildfires decimate the bush, Australia's native bee species are being added to the IUCN Red List and there are fears that more will be lost. Across Australia people are working to eductae the public about our incredible native bees, conducting research to find out more about them and creating safe havens to protect them.

Judith speaks with Paul Craft-Burragun from Burragun Aboriginal Cultural Services, Kit Prendergast, native bee ecologist and science communicator, James Dorey ecologist, evolutionary biologist and taxonomist at Flinders University and Emma Cutting, author of the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor Handbook.

Thank you to Vicki Powys for permission to use of the sound of the Lipotriches flavoviridis wild bee buzz-pollinating a native Solanum flower recorded in the Capertee Valley in  New South Wales and published in 2016.

Links to guests' publications and information discussed in the program

Paul Craft-Burragun

https://www.burragun.com.au/

Kit Prendergast

https://www.beethecure.com.au/product/creating-a-haven-fo-native-bees-ki...

James Dorey

https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7786/

Emma Cutting

https://theheartgardeningproject.org.au/shop/p/melbourne-pollinator-corr...

Earth Matters Episode #1389

Produced by Judith Peppard