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Pollinators have a role to play in helping to keep plants — and crops — alive and thriving. This weekend, at John Bryan State Park, community members got to attend Pollinator Power Fest to learn more about how to maintain this part of our ecosystems.
Organized by the Ohio Parks Foundation and Vesper Energy, the goal was to educate the public on the role of pollinators in environmental preservation, and how solar projects can support their habitats.
The event was held at this state park because Vesper is planning a solar project with a pollinator habitat nearby, to be called Aviation Energy Center.
This event has been in the works since May, according to Vesper Energy development manager Hannah Larkin.
Larkin said Vesper wants to teach people how solar energy can be compatible with the natural environment.
“Unfortunately, the oil and gas industry has done a great job at peddling misinformation very intentionally. Some of that information includes things like, the toxicity of solar panels, which has been disproven time and time again,” Larkin said. “Local communities can benefit from clean energy and the ecological benefits of well-sited, responsibly developed solar.”
Doug Tallamy, ecologist and author of the New York Times bestseller “Nature’s Best Hope,” was a featured speaker at the event.
For the future of our planet, learning to live with nature is the only viable option, Tallamy said.
“We have to go beyond conservation into restoration. We have to rebuild nature in so many places that we have already destroyed it,” Tallamy said.
There were more than 500 attendees at the event. Bellbrook residents Wesley and Zara Smith were a few of those attendees. They said they’ve already planted and established hundreds of native plant species on their own property, but that the intersection of solar and pollinator habitat is a new concept for them.
“But I am interested in solar energy. Any new technology that we create has to go hand in hand with taking care of the environment around it,” Zara Smith said.
Other activities made available at the event included Ohio State’s BUGmobile, a family-friendly nature walk, arts and crafts and more.
As for the Aviation Energy Center, Larkin and other Vesper officials presented a potential site for the project to Miami Township trustees in July.
Vesper Energy is contributing to the construction of a one acre pollinator habitat plot at John Bryan.
