{"id":190,"date":"2024-01-15T14:41:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T12:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astikimelissa.gr\/?page_id=190"},"modified":"2024-02-16T21:02:12","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T19:02:12","slug":"epikoniazontas-tin-athina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/astikimelissa.gr\/en\/epikoniazontas-tin-athina\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollinating Athens"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nPollinating Athens\n<\/h1><\/div>\n<\/section>
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\nThis project is about mapping and highlighting the entomological biodiversity and the urban flora of Athens, for the first time. It is implemented as a \"Citizen Science\" program, in which citizens actively participate in scientific processes. It has three main pillars with complementary sub-activities:\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>
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\nThe first is education and raising awareness. In each of our activities we present the participants with information about pollination, the groups of pollinating insects and the most common species found in Greece. We discuss the problems and dangers faced by pollinating insects. We visit schools in Attica to educate students and build insect hotels with our adult participants, which are placed in the city to offer new nesting sites and opportunities for citizens to interact with the pollinating insects. We visit apiaries with our most active participants and learn more about the biology and life cycle of the honeybee (Apis mellifera).\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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\nThe second pillar is about data collection. The main activity (\u201cBioBlitz\u201d) takes place in public parks of the city. We are using our cell phone camera and the iNaturalist app to take photos of the pollinators and urban flora we encounter. The use of this particular application contributes to learning, as it offers ready-made recognition suggestions for the species encountered. We hope that after each meeting, each one of us will continue to record species in the places he visits in his daily life, so that we can gradually compose a more complete picture of a beekeeping map of Athens!\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\nThe third pillar is the analysis of the data collected and the dissemination of information. Our goal is to determine the current level of biodiversity and pollinator populations in the study areas, as well as which plants provide important food sources for them. We involve citizen scientists in this process as well, to create interesting narratives about our findings. \n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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\nThe programme was funded by the \"Healthy Planet and Cities for Life\" competition of the IMPETUS project (funded from European Union's Horizon WIDERA 2021-ERA-01 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 101058677).\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>
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\nGET TO
KNOW US\n<\/h1>
\nWhether you want to take action with us as an individual, you belong to a collective and you want to co host an activity with us or you want us to come to a school to inform the students, please contact us.\n<\/div>
\nYou will find more information about the findings of our program on our blog and social media, as well as where our next activities are planned for in spring 2024. Stay tuned!\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>
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\nFAQ\n<\/h1>
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\nWhat happens to wild bees and other pollinating insects?\n<\/h3>
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\nAttica, due to its exceptional climate, hosts both honeybees and many other types of pollinating insects. There are over 1200 species of wild bees in Greece and many are endangered. The main problem wild pollinators are facing in the city is the absence of natural nesting sites.

With the program \"Pollinating Athens\", we take the initiative to record and highlight the entomological biodiversity of Athens, to offer nesting sites with \"insect hotels\" and to bring citizens experientially close to pollinating insects.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\nAren't urban honeybees competing with wild bees and other pollinating insects?\n<\/h3>
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\nHoneybees have always existed in Athens, as evidenced by well-known toponyms (e.g. Kypseli, Melissia). Our approach is to develop urban biodiversity in a way that benefits all insect pollinators. We are not a for-profit business and for us the main goal is to raise public awareness of the problems faced by pollinators. We maintain small apiaries within the urban fabric, at reasonable distances from each other for a few months of the year, so that there is plenty of food both for our honeybees and the rest of the insects. Honey for us comes as a reward to a community that grows richer year after year. We believe that bees in the city present to us a unique opportunity to create a system that is not so much in harmony \"with nature\", but in harmony \"as\" nature.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\nWhy do we need bees and other insects?\n<\/h3>
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\nFlowering plants and insects have a long history of co-evolution through the process of pollination. Insects help plants reproduce by carrying pollen from flower to flower and that's why we call them pollinators. The plants in turn provide them with pollen and nectar as food. Through the process of pollination, plants bear seeds and fruits and reproduce. Insect pollinators play a crucial role both in the balance of our ecosystem and in food production, as 80-90% of crops need pollination<\/a> by insects. In 2019 the Earthwatch Institute announced the honeybee as the most important living being on our planet,<\/a> as it is the most efficient pollinator.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\nAre bees and other insects endangered?\n<\/h3>
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\nIn recent decades, the populations of bees and other pollinating insects have been threatened at a global level, as the balance of nature on which they based their evolution has begun to be significantly disturbed. With agriculture and animal husbandry becoming increasingly systematic and intensive over the last century, land use has changed dramatically. Widespread use of pesticides, reckless logging, deforestation for fodder cultivation and urban sprawl, forests that burn every year and are not reforested, pollution and the loss of much of the water table are just some of the factors that contribute to the extinction of bees by 90%<\/a>.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\nWhy do we need bees in cities?\n<\/h3>
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\nWe may have more cement and asphalt in the cities than in the countryside, but here there are also more of us. And where many of us are, great things can happen, starting with a change in consciousness. Although in Greece we have an amazing entomological biodiversity, no actions have yet been taken to protect it. Our goal is to familiarize ourselves with the bee and other pollinating insects in cities, which are essential for environmental balance and harmless to humans. By using the honeybee as a symbolic vehicle and means of raising awareness, we hope to start taking action to protect all pollinating insects in urban and rural areas. \n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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