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Bee Aware: The Movie

Watch the The Bee Aware Movie HERE

BBBC

During 2008 and 2009 Brighton & Hove ran the Big Biodiversity Butterfly Count (BBBC) it’s first bio-literacy campaign designed to encourage full public participation. The BBBC aimed to make people aware of the need to protect biodiversity because of the ecosystem services it provides. Simultaneously, it attempted to make people aware that butterflies as a group could be used as surrogates to monitor the majority of terrestrial biodiversity, making butterflies the canary in the coal mine, reflecting changes in the environment.

Raising Bio-literacy

On the eve of the BBBC going National we now introduce "Bee Aware", designed to raise the bio-literacy of the people in Brighton & Hove at an elementary level. This time using a limited number of species, five bumble bee species and the honey bee, the aim of the project is to make it even more simple for people to raise their own personal bio-literacy skills. “Bee Aware” is Dorothy Stringer High School’s contribution to the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) and forms one of a series of event being put on by Brighton & Hove’s Big Nature to celebrate IYB. Thus, “Bee Aware” is launched on International Biodiversity Day, 22 May 2010. This project is Interreg funded and we are working in tandem with the city of Le Havre, Northern France.

Aims

The aims of the Bee Aware include:

  1. To encourage members of the public to make the time to observe their local wildlife (in this case bees) and thus raise their own personal bio-literacy skills.
  2. To enhance the identification skills of the public.
  3. To provide an entry level to wildlife monitoring.
  4. To use the data generated by the Bee Aware to make possible comparisons between the abundances of common species found in both Le Havre and Brighton & Hove.
  5. To introduce the concept of bees providing a local support (ecosystem) service in the form of pollination.
  6. To make people more aware of human reliance on the invisible ecosystem services supplied free of charge by bio-diverse ecosystems.
  7. To raise awareness of accelerated species loss.

On your doorstep

The 2009 Big Biodiversity Butterfly Count survey revealed that the most frequently surveyed habitat was gardens (46.2%). This is where Bee Aware will direct public attention, encouraging access to nature on the public doorstep. All you have to do to participate is to collect a "Bee Aware" identification guide from the library and try to identify the common bees in your garden or local park. The data can then be entered on this website. All records will be stored at the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre. So please feel free to join the efforts to make Brighton & Hove a more bio-literate city.

Go to the BEE AWARE Recording Form >>