By Robert Moss, Green Flag for Park Awards Development Manager

2021-2025 All-Ireland Pollinator Plan Review and the Green Flag Pollinator Plan Award

The review of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2021-2025 was recently published by the National Biodiversity Data Centre. It is a review for 2021-2025 and aims to transparently and honestly assess what has been achieved in the last five years. This second phase of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan has now been successfully delivered, and the final review of its achievements is available here:

https://pollinators.ie/aipp-2021-2025-final-review/

An Taisce has worked as a strategic partner with the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan since 2017, via the introduction of the Pollinator Plan Award for public green space amenities participating within the Green Flag Award for Parks Scheme.

Photo: Wildflower Lawn at the northern entrance to Millennium Park, Blanchardstown, West Dublin. Photographed during the Green Flag Award site survey at Millennium Park in 2021. Photo by Robert Moss.

The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan (AIPP) stands out as one of Ireland’s best environmental success stories over the last decade. It has delivered a framework bringing together different sectors across the island of Ireland to create a landscape where pollinators can survive and thrive. Upon its launch, and subsequent coordination, by the National Biodiversity Data Centre in 2015, it immediately found traction with both local authorities and community groups engaged in local environmental initiatives. The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan has played a huge role in leveraging public and private green space amenities away from high intensity maintenance and low biodiversity. It has done this by encouraging chemical-free grounds maintenance, native horticulture, and a more seasonally friendly mowing and maintenance schedule for plants and wildlife. This has helped secure a major change in attitudes across many local authorities, civic initiatives such as the Tidy Towns Competition, and by private land owners.

In publishing the first All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, back in 2015, Ireland became one of the first countries in Europe to address pollinator declines, and the plan has since gained international acclaim. All 42 Councils across the island of Ireland have now formally partnered with the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and have committed to taking actions on the public lands that they manage. By embracing the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan as part of their Biodiversity and Environmental policies these Local Authorities are taking significant actions for supporting pollinators and biodiversity.

An Taisce’s Pollinator Plan Award was inspired by multiple participating Green Flag Award sites who were eager for their ground work with the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan to be recognised within the international Green Flag Award for Parks Scheme. It is jointly run by the National Biodiversity Data Centre and An Taisce.

Robert Moss of An Taisce publicly launched the new award on Friday the 17th of February 2017, at the first annual All-Ireland Pollinator Plan Regional Meeting that was held at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre in CountyArmagh. As well as outlining how the new Pollinator Plan Award would operate, this event was used to highlight some of the pollinator supportive landscaping and maintenance techniques already encountered within the Green Flag Award scheme, and which the Pollinator Plan Award intended to propagate more widely across Green Flag Award participant sites.

The pollinator plan award is specifically for those parks and public amenities of Green Flag Award status that have made a concerted effort to support the local pollinating insect populations, or to promote their importance, in line with the guidance of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan. Each year Green Flag Award applicants are invited to submit an optional pollinator plan for their site. Applicants provide details on how their pollinator project delivers on the following All-Ireland Pollinator Plan actions:

A: Identify and protect existing areas that are good for pollinators 

B: Reduce mowing of grassy areas 

C: Pollinator-friendly planting 

D: Provide wild pollinator nesting habitat 

E: Eliminate or reduce the use of pesticides 

F: Raise awareness of pollinators in your local area 

G: Tracking progress and receiving recognition 

There is a clear benefit in structuring groundwork activities into the formalised Pollinator Plan Award. It means that the effort and improvements delivered by individual sites and staff are recognised, communicated, and documented. This means that good work practices will be put on a long term footing, and not eclipsed by events and staff turnover. Additionally, action G – “Tracking progress and receiving recognition”, involves the park and its actions taken to be added to the publicly available Pollinator Plan mapping system ‘Actions for Pollinators’. This tracks progress and helps with coordination at local levels. As of the end of 2025, the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan has registered 5,400 sites and just over 14,000 individual actions have been logged on ‘Actions for Pollinators’.

This Green Flag Award Pollinator Plan accommodates the huge variety of size and park styles found across Ireland, with the following broad categories of public green space amenity:

The Pollinator Plan Award is supporting Objective 2 of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, by “making public land pollinator friendly”. This is done via:

“Action 34: Promote pollinator awards for Council-owned/managed land.” (National Biodiversity Data Centre, 2025a, p28)

After its first introduction in 2017, the Pollinator Plan Award was subsequently extended in 2019 to community groups applying for Green Flag Community Award status for their community volunteer run green space projects.

Following on from the success of the An Taisce/NBDC Pollinator Plan Award here in the Republic of Ireland, an equivalent pollinator award was launched inNorthern Ireland in 2022. This is also operated by the National Biodiversity Data Centre, and Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful.

Photo: An Aerial View of Julianstown Community Garden. Photo by Kevin Murphy. 

The Garden was designed by Clare McEnaney and the Community of Julianstown has spent hours upon hours planting trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables, fruit trees and fruit bushes, herbs etc.

In 2021 the Green Flag Community Award site of Julianstown Community Garden in County Meath, was the Community Award Category winner of the Pollinator Plan Award.

The National Biodiversity Data Centre has recently announced that funding is now in place to deliver the next phase of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2026-2030. 

This funding will enable the delivery of a 10-module island-wide programme over five years. These modules will address: 

(National Biodiversity Data Centre, 2025b)

The timeframe For this new All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2026-2030 is fortuitous, as it dovetails with the development of the National Restoration Plan. Ireland is currently developing a National Restoration Plan, due to be published in 2026. This itself is in response to the new EU European Nature Restoration Law that was passed in 2024. This new law includes requirements for measures to halt pollinator decline and monitor improvement by no later than 2030:

“From 2030 there should be an increasing trend of pollinator populations, measured with a programme of monitoring.”

(National Biodiversity Data Centre, 2025c, p29)

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References:

National Biodiversity Data Centre (2025a) All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2021-2025: FINAL REVIEW - Update on each action 2021-2025. Waterford. Available at:https://pollinators.ie/aipp-2021-2025-final-review/

National Biodiversity Data Centre (2025b) The Centre has received Shared Island Funding for the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2026-2030. Waterford. Available at:https://biodiversityireland.ie/the-centre-has-received-shared-island-funding-for-the-all-ireland-pollinator-plan-2026-2030/

National Biodiversity Data Centre (2025c) All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2021-2025: FINAL REVIEW - Overview of progress 2021-2025. Waterford. Available at:https://pollinators.ie/aipp-2021-2025-final-review/