> Studies in California demonstrate that around 30 percent
> of the land within threequarters of a mile of a field should
> be in natural habitat in order to provide full pollination for
> watermelon.

Peter, I previously said: "neither the academics nor the pollinator
protection groups have proposed land management changes
that would be logistically feasible and financially affordable
for society to implement on a landscape scale."

By "landscape scale" I mean huge areas, not small areas.  In other
words even though it's true the academics and pollinator groups
have determined "that around 30 percent of the land within
threequarters of a mile of a field of watermelons should be in natural
habitat" they have not determined that it would be logistically
feasible and financially affordable for California's conventional
watermelon growers to create/restore this amount of natural habitat
for wild native bees on the 84 square miles of land they farm.  And
those 84 square miles represent just miniscule percentage of the
amount of land occupied by various crops California's Central Valley.

So because it's neither logistically or financially feasible for
society to implement major pollinator friendly land management
practices on a landscape scale (on an area of land the size
of California's Central Valley for example) declines in native 
pollinators can be expected to continue in the Central Valley 
due to not only increasingly more intensive agricultural practices, 
but also ongoing and irreversible declines in available pollinator
habitat due to land cleared for housing developments, associated 
shopping centers and industrial parks, new road construction, 
widening of existing roads, increased mowing and spraying along 
roads for wildfire prevention and improved flood water control.
etc.

Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.

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