Across North America and Europe, bees are suffering dramatic species loss due to the climate crisis

Thanks to our ever-warming planet, bumblebee populations which are already threatened by pesticides and habitat loss have declined 46% in North America and 17% in Europe compared with baseline numbers from 1901 to 1974, according to a new study published in the journal Science .

The scale of this decline is really worrying, Peter Soroye, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study, told The New York Times . This group of organisms is such a critical pollinator in wild landscapes and agricultural regions.

Its estimated that between $235 billion and $577 billion worth of annual food production globally relies on the pollinator services of more than 20,000 types of bees, along with birds, bats, and butterflies.

Three years ago, the rusty patched bumblebee was listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after it was found that its population across the country had declined by 90% since the 1990s. A declining bee population undermines the worlds ability to produce food .

In the U.K., a study in May found that 17 species of bees are considered regionally extinct including the great yellow bumblebee, the Potter flower bee and the cliff mason bee 25 were threatened, and an additional 31 were considered of concern to conservationists. And of Europes more than 800 bee species , 171 are considered either endangered, vulnerable or near-threatened.

Bees are just one part of a severe biodiversity crisis , which could see a million species go extinct over the next decade because of human actions. To solve it, we must rapidly decrease emissions, slash pollution and protect land.

Land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural environment, Robert Watson, chair of the U.N. study, told HuffPost .

But there are glimmers of hope to be seen in the efforts of individuals, communities, cities and countries to try to stop the demise of bees. From paying residents to grow pollinator lawns to banning pesticides, here are five reasons to have some hope for the future of bees.

Paying people to create bee-friendly gardens