We are writing this on the eve of Earth Day. A billion people in close to 200 countries around the globe are participating.

As we all know, every day has to be Earth Day.

Every day, we — as individuals, as local communities, as states, as nations, and as part of a world compact — have to think of ways to protect and preserve our planet, to counter the harm we humans have caused to other species and to ourselves.

“Invest in our planet” is the theme this year and the website EarthDay.org details around-the-world initiatives from climate literacy to sustainable fashion.

Close to home, we’ve been urging green initiatives on this page for years but recently came across a new one — solar beekeeping — that we’d like to promote.

We’ve written here before about the importance of native plants and just this month started running a weekly series produced by one of our readers, Joan Mckeon of Guilderland.

Mckeon, you may remember from a podcast we did earlier this year, had an awakening as she mowed her lawn — a job she hated. “It smelled bad, it was noisy, and the little creatures would run for their lives,” she said.

The less lawn she mowed, the more native plants grew up. “They would bloom and then they’d be covered with bees,” she said.

Similarly, plants in her garden beds had been purchased at a garden center and came from other parts of the world.

“In between them would be all these pesky little things that would pop up, and they would be doing so much better than what I had planted,” Mckeon said. She came to realize she was pulling out native plants to make room for alien plants.

Mckeon cites Douglas Tallamy, author of “Nature’s Best Hope,” saying, “His idea is that, if everybody that had a lawn could even take a portion of that lawn and put it back into native plants, it would be a home-grown national park that would be bigger than all of the national parks put together.”

Mckeon asserts, “Everybody can make a contribution to wildlife. And, to me, it’s so much fun.”

To help people get started — one plant at a time — we are running Mckeon’s “Plant this plant” column with a photograph of a different native plant each week and a description of where it might work best — in sun or shade, in wet or dry soil —  and what it will bring to your yard.

Last week, it was gray dogwood. This week, it is native plum. Next week, it will be orange milkweed.

Every native grass, flower, shrub, or tree can help restore native insects, which help native birds, and the ecosystem at large. They also save water. Planting native plants is something, unlike many needed earth-saving initiatives, where an individual can make a difference.

Pollinators are particularly critical. Three-quarters of all flowering plants on our planet need pollinators to reproduce; this is the foundation of the foods that many species, including humans, depend on. Pollinators produce an estimated $18 billion worth of edible crops in the United States annually, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Insect populations are in the midst of a dramatic decline. Across the world, more than 40 per cent of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, according to a United Nations analysis. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds, and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5 percent a year, the 2019 report said.

“Insects make up about half of all known living organisms. They play key roles in pollination, nutrient cycling, food chains of birds and other insectivores, and are one of the pillars of our ecosystems. However, the wide use of insecticides, fragmentation of habitats and climate change are placing multiple threats on them, and their populations are under sharp decline,” says the January 2019 U.N. Environment Foresight Brief.

“Many people think of insects as a nuisance. They don’t realize that without them we are doomed,” says the U.N. post. “Insect declines are a stark warning to humanity.”

According to Tallamy, as native vegetation is replaced by roadways, lawns, non-native gardens, and industrially managed crops, 95 percent  of the natural world in the United States has become unnatural.

So what can we do — outside of cultivating native plants in our own yards — about this stark warning?

The Center for Rural Affairs has published a fact sheet, making the case for solar beekeeping.

All of the towns we cover have or are soon to have large solar facilities. We’ve written on this page about agrivoltaics where, for example, a sheep farmer could have her herd graze in the same field where solar panels are placed.

But solar beekeeping is a far more accessible approach and it is something our towns could require of solar developers.

“Solar beekeeping is the practice of placing beehives on or near solar sites,” says the fact sheet. “While photovoltaic panels are generating energy from the sun, bees are busy making honey and pollinating the native and non-invasive plant species below the panels.”

The Center for Rural Affairs convincingly makes the case that beekeeping at solar sites can enhance the value of the land by keeping it in agricultural production; provide new streams of income for local farmers; and add environmental benefits such as water filtration, reduced erosion, and enhanced soil health because of the non-invasive, native vegetation.

Solar beekeeping is a win-win-win-win: Project developers benefit from the solar energy produced by the photovoltaic panels, beekeepers gain resiliency from a diverse source of pollen for honey production, nearby farms profit from pollination services, and the landowner sees improved soil health.

Further, the paper says, project developers can save money on maintenance costs by seeding the ground with native plants, citing industry experts that calculate developers will spend three times less on operation and maintenance costs over 20 years compared to managing turf-grass sites.

At the same time, solar beekeepers see increased marketing opportunities as consumers want more than just good taste in their honey; they care about helping the environment.

Meanwhile, environmental benefits include not just increased pollination but habitat for butterflies, birds, and animals as well as enhancing soil health and reducing runoff.

The deep root systems of the native plants increase soil porosity and water filtration, organic matter content, healthy soil microbes, fungi, and insects, and add nutrients back to the soil, the paper says.

So how can we institute solar beekeeping?

The Center for Rural Affairs cites states, like Minnesota and Illinois, that have passed legislation to make it happen. Minnesota has a state policy requiring adherence to standards that ensure the quality of pollinator habitat at solar sites.

Illinois passed the Pollinator Friendly Site Act in 2018, requiring a solar project developer to meet standards outlined in a scorecard so a site can be designated as pollinator friendly.

New York state does not have any requirements for solar developers to plant native plants but, in 2020, the state issued guidelines for pollinator habitats on commercial properties.

“Pollinators are integral to our food system with over one third of global food production dependent on their ecosystem services …,” say our state guidelines. “Large scale loss of native wildflower habitat has dramatically decreased pollinator population in recent years, creating an immediate need for habitat restoration …

“Energy utility projects such as solar electric generating systems could be suitable locations for restoration of this sun-dependent, wildflower dominated ecosystem.”

New York’s guidelines go on to detail specifics such as planning and site preparation, seeding and planting, and operation and maintenance.

Everything from soil preparation to seed mixes is spelled out for any local government that would want to institute such requirements. We strongly urge our towns to consider this.

Our towns could adopt measures that require or at least incentivize that solar projects be seeded with native species. The regulations could set up a project site for beekeeping — typically located on the outside of the fenced-in area around the solar panels.

Such initiatives would help the local economy as well as the environment.

It is indeed, as this year’s Earth Day slogan stresses, time to “invest in our planet.” What better place to start than in our literal backyards and hometowns?