In his remarks, to be made at the L.B.J. Auditorium on the main campus of the University of Texas, Secretary Babbitt will explain his concern for the animals and insects that pollinate a wide variety of the foods we eat, as well as most other important and endangered plants.
Common pollinators are native bees, butterflies, bats and hummingbirds.
Loss of habitat, poisonings, and fragmentation of the plant life on which they depend is reducing the number of pollinators alarmingly. Their dwindling numbers and even disappearances increasingly threaten the human food supply and the essential diversity of natural and agricultural plants. Secretary Babbitt will make his remarks before a group of conservationists, scientists and academics attending a conference of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Following the speech and a question and answer session with conference participants, Secretary Babbitt will be available for questions from the media. I'm hopeful that when the public becomes more aware of the threats to these admirable creatures, more cities and communities will make efforts to conserve the wild plants and natural places essential to the survival of pollinators, whose future is so crucial to our own.