BEEnet

BEEnet was born from a national prototype competition run by WWF-Romania in collaboration with Code for Romania and the Design Thinking Society in 2022. We searched all over the country for mixed teams of programmers and UX/UI designers with experience and a love for biodiversity to work together for the cause of saving pollinators. The result is a unique tool on the Romanian app market that also has an important stake:
- Unique because BEEnet brings together the world of plants, the world of pollinating insects (bees, butterflies, etc.) and our daily lives (gastronomy, hiking and plant picking, gardening and other suggestions/ideas for living in harmony with nature), something that no other app does;
- And with a stake because we want people to become more informed and motivated to protect pollinators, guided by BEEnet in this fascinating and highly interconnected world. Because right now we are facing the decline of these species and the risk of their extinction, which announces a real existential crisis for all of us: 37% of European bee species have declining populations, of which 9.1% are on the verge of extinction, and 31% of butterfly species also have declining populations, of which 9% are threatened with extinction. It is in the power of each of us to stop this trend, in good time.

How to use BEEnet
Use the app to find out what plant you encounter on your walks, which pollinating insects depend on it and help it reproduce.

Use the app to know which plants to pick, how to pick them responsibly, which plants you should leave alone and how to use plants at home in delicious recipes for artisanal food and drinks.

Use the app to learn how to make a good garden for pollinators, how you can support pollinators through food decisions.
Use the app to find out what is happening to pollinators in our country and how you can influence what (only) seems uninfluenceable: political decisions and public policies that have an impact on pollinators.

Our partners

The plant identification mechanism is generously offered by the developers of the PlantNet app and is a very advanced mechanism for recognizing different plant species in the world and in Europe.

The recipes for plant-based dishes are created by Mona Petre (Ierburi Uitate); the recipes for herbal craft drinks come from the creators of the FIX me a drink botanical bar, in Bucharest.

The plant descriptions are made in collaboration with the "Dimitrie Brândză" Botanical Garden in Bucharest, together with dr. biol. Petronela Camen-Comănescu. The descriptions of pollinator species are made in collaboration with entomologist Mihai Pop.

The team that created this application is made up of: Vlad Berianu (programmer), Anca Balotă (architect and UI/UX specialist), Valentina Crăciun (architect and UI/UX specialist).

More details:
How the application was born
About PlantNet
Forgotten Herbs
FIX | botanical bar
Botanical Garden "Dimitrie Brândză" Bucharest

This application was created within the project "BeeActive - Mobilizing citizens for the conservation of bees and other pollinators in Romania", carried out by WWF-Romania in partnership with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), with the financial support of the Active Citizens Fund Romania, a program financed by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants 2024-2021. More details about BeeActive here.

The content of this application does not necessarily represent the official position of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021; for more information, please visit https://eeagrants.org/en/fmo and https://activecitizensfund.ro/.