Criteria and methods to identify Key Pollinator Areas (KPAs) and Buzz Lines (ETC BE Working Paper 2026)

Europe’s wild pollinators are vital for ecosystem functioning and services, including the pollination of around 80% of wild flowering plants and crops, thereby ensuring human food security. Despite their relevance, pollinator populations are in strong decline, driven primarily by the intensification of agriculture and forestry, loss of (semi-) natural habitats, their degradation and fragmentation, and climate change. The populations of around one in three pollinator species are declining and an increasing number of species is even threatened with extinction. To address this crisis, the revised EU Pollinators Initiative set the commitment to identify, and map Key Pollinator Areas (KPAs) and “Buzz Lines” (i.e. a network of ecological corridors for pollinators). This report develops criteria and methods for the identification of these two complementary conservation tools, where KPAs represent the most important areas for the European Union’s (EU) key pollinator taxa, bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths. Their identification combines direct criteria based on species occurrence, such as the presence of threatened, rare and endemic species, with indirect criteria based on the availability of the resources necessary for species survival, such as habitat type, floral resources and nesting structures. Buzz Lines shall act as ecological corridors connecting KPAs and providing habitat continuity at two spatial scales: for long-distance connectivity supporting migration and climate-driven range shifts and at the regional to local scale enabling habitat connectivity through habitat mosaics, stepping stones and linear structures. The report provides a starting point for implementing actions to establish KPAs and Buzz Lines (action 2.3/4.4) of the EU Pollinators Initiative and aims to help achieving the targets set under Article 10 of the Nature Restoration Regulation to ensure the recovery of wild pollinators. We emphasise the great potential of such an approach for the EU-wide conservation of our pollinators, through active Member State engagement, stakeholder inclusion and cross-border cooperation.