KUALA LUMPUR: Many species of bees, butterflies and other creatures that are vital to agricultural pollination are threatened with extinction, posing risks to major world crops and global biodiversity, a UN body said on Friday.

“Many wild bees and butterflies have been declining in abundance, occurrence and diversity at local and regional scales in Northwest Europe and North America,” said an assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

It said declines in pollinators — which also include a vast range of other insects, bats, birds and other animals — had also been detected elsewhere in the world.

The problem facing policy-makers is that scientists remain unsure exactly which factors are the biggest drivers.

The world’s first assessment of its kind said possible causes include habitat loss, pesticides, pollution, invasive species, pathogens, climate change and the spread of vast farms dedicated to a single product, which suppresses biodiversity.

The IPBES was established under UN auspices in 2012 to assess the state of global biodiversity. It said healthy populations of the creatures are critical to ensuring stable fruit and vegetable output, as concerns rise over the challenge of feeding the world’s people in coming decades.

Among its findings, it said animal pollination is directly responsible for between five and eight percent of global agricultural production by volume, amounting to between $235 billion and $577 billion worth of annual output.

But more than three-quarters of the “leading types of global food crops” also rely to some extent on animal pollination for yield and quality.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2016