The ecological health of our planet is imperiled. Two salient threats to our survival are climate

change/global warming, and loss of biodiversity. Synod wide promotion of pollinator gardens, called Pollinator Sanctuaries, addresses primarily the latter, though the crises are intricately interwoven. Establishing plots of native flowering plants – on which bees, moths, beetles, flies, and other pollinating insects depend for survival - is a pragmatic and immediate action that most of us can take, as well as an act of love and worship. Our synod acknowledged that directly in a continuing resolution passed with overwhelming support at the 2023 synod convention. The resolution encourages ALL Northeastern MN synod congregations to proactively embark on this venture as part of our mandate to steward our creator God’s beloved creation.

Biodiversity loss – which term Jason Hickel states is “a strange euphemism for mass destruction of nonhuman beings” - poses an enormous challenge. United Nation researchers have reported that upwards of one million species are now facing the threat of extinction, and that such a dire fate confronts up to 40% of all plant species on earth. Habitat destruction plays the largest role in this loss at present, but rising temperatures from climate change will increasingly threaten biodiversity in coming decades. Native landscapes have been increasingly displaced by rapid population growth with attendant urban sprawl, destructive denuding mining techniques on a massive scale worldwide, vast expanses of concrete and asphalt laid down in our roadways and parking lots, intensive monocrop agriculture, and ongoing rapid conversion (well over 40 million acres in the USA alone) of what had been natural landscapes into showcase lawns and golf courses which are quite sterile with respect to support of insect populations.

Renowned Pulitzer prize-winning ecologist and author Edward Wilson has written that “to save the earth, we must save one half of the planet for nature”. Unfortunately, already more than half the planet’s natural environment has been destroyed or profoundly degraded. That means that we must not only protect our remnant natural environments, but we will need to restore landscapes which are no longer natural but can be reclaimed. Insects whose survival depends on timely restoration of these natural habitats are of more importance than we have acknowledged – in fact, they are essential to our survival. Not only are these seemingly lowly invertebrates “other than human”; in our utter dependence on their welfare for our own survival, we might need to embrace long overdue humility and honor them as “more than human.” Again quoting E. O Wilson: “Insects are the little things that run the world; life as we know it depends on the insects”.

Some scientists fear our planet is beyond the tipping point with respect to the survival of our insect

communities. Entomologist Doug Tallamy points out that if our insect population collapses, the following events would ensue: most flowering plants will go extinct, as they depend on pollinators for their ongoing propagation. Our complex food web which supports caterpillars, butterflies, birds, small mammals, predator species and humans would rapidly collapse. Our biosphere would become stagnant and non-recycling due to the loss of insects which promote decomposition, and humanity would be unable to survive.

The survival of pollinators depends not only on restoration of our native plant populations, but also on the elimination of widespread use of toxic chemicals (especially the neonicotinoids), and control of myriad invasive species which crowd out and eventually replace native plant habitat. The emphasis on the crucial role of native plant species (as opposed to alien or exotic species native to other continents, or cultivars and hybrids designed primarily for impressive floral display or other aesthetic considerations) arises from this biological imperative: 90% of the insects which support our local food webs can only develop and thrive on the plants with which they share an evolutionary history.

From the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to the present, the egocentric and myopic preoccupation of our culture with economic growth, consumption, wealth, acquisition of goods, and the concomitant commodification of our natural resources and non-human life forms has led to a planetary crisis of our own making. Our greed and hubris and inability to discern the need to reframe our relationship to nature - with repentance, then reverence, respect, responsibility, and reciprocity - has made us modern day protagonists in the Biblical story of the flood. We have become the flood threatening the world’s survival. Paradoxically, our untamed and unruly and heretofore misdirected power as a species also singles us out as the only creature capable of serving as the ark. The radical and life-altering changes necessary to construct the ark soon enough

and wisely enough and societally broadly enough to succeed are daunting. Perhaps they are impossible. None can be certain that even wise and heroic efforts will succeed. We might succumb to despair or a morbid acceptance of inevitable failure.

There is another way. Ponder this quote from Diane Jacobson, Luther Seminary Old Testament Professor emerita and vibrant EcoFaith team member: “And yet the biblical account of the flood is also a tale of promise. The rainbow stands as a sign to us and to God. God sees the rainbow, the sign of the covenant, and remembers the divine promise. Abundant, fruitful, and ongoing life is the will of God. The dove of peace with the olive branch in her beak joins the rainbow as God’s sign that the chaotic waters will never again have the final say.”

Let your pollinator garden join the olive branch and the rainbow. Doug Tallamy advises us to avoid paralysis by shrinking the problem to something manageable. Bill McKibben, environmentalist advocate for the necessity of radical sweeping changes on a global level to combat environmental destruction also states “there’s no such thing as a useless community garden”. And no useless church pollinator garden. A single pot of milkweed flourishing on an apartment balcony may save a dozen monarch caterpillars. A hundred churches within our synod with native wildflower plots no larger than the space allotted to a single parking stall can collectively form an archipelago of pollen and nectar sources which bridges the small remnant islands of native vegetation they rely on and enable the successful northward migration of hundreds of butterflies. That is a start. That reflects our hope and confidence that our Creator God dwells in the world, sees it as good, and continues to bless it and be involved in it. God wants a flourishing creation.

There are currently 44 congregations in the NE MN Synod who are or are becoming Pollinator

Sanctuary Congregations. We are the hands. Now is the time.

Written by Bruce Garbisch, Trinity, Cook, based on monthly Green Tips, researched and written by Laura Raedeke, Church of the Cross, Nisswa