UNEP emerging issues: global honey bee colony disorder and other threats to insect pollinators

This report concludes that currently available global data and knowledge on the decline of pollinators are not sufficiently conclusive to demonstrate that there is a worldwide pollinator and related crop production crisis. Although honey bee hives have globally increased close to 45% during the last 50 years, declines have been reported in several locations, largely in Europe and Northern America. This apparent data discrepancy may be due to interpretations of local declines which may be masked by aggregated regional or global data. During the same 50-year period, agricultural production that is independent from animal pollination has doubled, while agricultural production requiring animal pollination has increased four-fold (reaching 6.1% in 2006). This appears to indicate that global agriculture has become increasingly pollinator dependent over the last 50 years.