Bees' Needs Champions Award

Wilding Wimborne was one of this year’s delighted recipients of a prestigious Bees’
Needs Champions Award. The awards are organised annually by the government’s
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) to recognise and celebrate
examples of exceptional initiatives undertaken to support pollinators by local
authorities, community groups, farmers, businesses and individuals.
This recognition comes in light of the work Wilding Wimborne has done following on
from receiving a Bee Friendly Town Award in 2022. The group continues to raise
awareness at events of the plight of our bees, and has expanded and relaunched the
town’s Bee Home Trail as a contribution to Wimborne’s year as Dorset’s Town of
Culture. https://planetwimborne.org/whats-the-buzz/
The Bees’ Needs Champions Award was presented at a ceremony at RHS Wisley’s
Bees’ Needs Science Festival on 14 July by Mary Creagh, Defra’s Minister for
Nature. Congratulating the winners, she said XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Wilding Wimborne also received heartfelt congratulations from Vikki Slade MP, who
said, ‘This recognition reflects the passion, dedication and community spirit you have
shown in supporting our vital pollinators. The work of champions like you is
invaluable – not only in helping pollinating species to survive and thrive, but also in
inspiring others to take action. Your work could not be more timely or more important.
I am firmly committed to championing environmental issues at a national level and
I’m proud to support initiatives like yours that make such a meaningful impact locally.’
Linda Bunting, founder and Chair of Wilding Wimborne, says, ‘We’re absolutely
thrilled to receive a Bees’ Needs Champion Award from Defra, but we’re not content
to rest on our laurels! We are currently in partnership with Wimborne Men’s Shed
who are making us a bee wall. This will contain over 30 bee homes, and local
children will be invited over the summer to help to fill the hexagons with bamboo
tubes. Our bees need all the help we can give them.’