Unexpected Pollinators

Unexpected Pollinators
Issue 350 • May/June 2025

In this issue we celebrate pollinators – and not just the ones you would expect us to include. Bees and butterflies, of course, but slugs and snails and mice and bats and lizards and beetles are important pollinators too. As are wind and water.

We extend the idea of ‘Unexpected Pollinators’ to introduce people who are working to encourage others to champion the natural world and recognise what we stand to lose if we don’t all work to protect our planet.

You will meet Dax Dasilva, a Canadian Tech entrepreneur working with Jane Goodall to help protect Indigenous wisdom in the Amazon, and influencer Lydia Millen, who uses her high fashion platform to share her love of gardening and bees. Both unexpected pollinators and, perhaps, equally unexpected champions of the natural world.

In our Slow Read, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist explains why we must strive to be worthy of trust – the single quality that he believes will steer us out of the mega-crises we face together, and in our Art & Culture section, writer Lucy Shrimpton visits Fenix, the new museum of human migration in Rotterdam.

Our special theme is a celebration of many facets of pollination – from Anisha Jaya Minocha’s reflection on her experience of bhramari (yoga’s calming bee breath) to an artist’s statement from Freddie Yauner who paints with pollen to highlight the plight of pollinators.

We offer a though-provoking issue with something for everyone and plenty to get you thinking about the way you too can be a pollinator and champion of right thinking and thus, of the natural world.

Highlights
We must strive to be worthy of trust: Iain McGilchrist
Nature’s Big Tech Champion: Susan Clark interviews Dax Dasilva
Introducing the beetle lady: Katie Dancey-Downs interviews M. G. Leonard
Pollinators and scent: Simon Constantine
Nerves of steel: J. P. O'Malley