Seed provenance position statement

In order to conserve pollinators and other wildlife, it is important to create the right ecological conditions for them to flourish. This often means creating or recreating diverse flower rich habitats which provide food and shelter for pollinators throughout their lifecycles. However, it is important that this is not done at the expense of local plant species which can be negatively impacted on by the introduction of plant species which are not locally native to an area.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust recognises that the origin of seed or other plant material for habitat restoration or creation is an important issue for biodiversity conservation and that the need to identify the source of that seed will depend on the location where the restoration or creation occurs.

Recently, there have been suggestions made for planting non-native provenances in anticipation of predicted future climates in the UK. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust believes that the priority has to be to conserve the existing native biodiversity and permit this to respond naturally to climate change through prioritising natural regeneration.

Bumblebee Conservation Trust adopts the following policy for the use of Local Provenance seed in habitat creation/restoration projects.

1. For high nature value locations, restoration or creation should be through natural regeneration or sourcing native seed locally, e.g. Green hay transfer or brush-harvesting.

2. UK-native origin seed should be used for arable or improved grassland sites away from existing seminatural habitat.

3. For urban locations away from existing seminatural habitats, creating attractive landscapes with some wildlife value may be the main objective, and in these cases well-established, non-invasive, introduced species can be just as valuable as native species and could be used.