Considering the urgent need to address the issue of worldwide decline of pollinator diversity, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention Biological Diversity decided to establish an International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Pollinators in 2000 (decision V/5, section II) and adopted a plan of action in 2002 (decision VI/5, annex II).

Aim
This Initiative aims to promote coordinated action worldwide to:

1. Monitor pollinator decline, its causes and its impact on pollination services
2. Address the lack of taxonomic information on pollinators
3. Assess the economic value of pollination and the economic impact of the decline of pollination services
4. Promote the conservation and the restoration and sustainable use of pollinator diversity in agriculture and related ecosystems

Elements of the plan of action

1. Assessment: to provide a comprehensive analysis of the status and trends of the world’s pollinator diversity and of the underlying causes of its decline (including a focus on the goods and services provided by pollinator diversity), as well as of local knowledge of its management.
2. Adaptive management: to identify management practices, technologies and policies that promote the positive and mitigate the negative impacts of agriculture on pollinator diversity and activity, in order to enhance productivity and the capacity to sustain livelihoods, by expanding knowledge, understanding and awareness of the multiple goods and services provided by pollinators.
3. Capacity-building: to strengthen the capacities of farmers, indigenous and local communities, and their organizations and other stakeholders, to manage pollinator diversity so as to increase its benefits, and to promote awareness and responsible action.
4. Mainstreaming: to support the development of national plans or strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of pollinator diversity and to promote their mainstreaming and integration in sectoral and cross-sectoral plans and programmes.

For each of these elements, an operational objective, a rationale, a set of activities, ways and means and timing of expected outputs are provided and detailed in the annex II of decision VI/5.