A petition in Bavaria on preserving species diversity, popularly known as the “save the bees” campaign, has garnered sufficient support to enforce significant changes to the state’s farming practices.

The organisers reached their target of securing the signatures of 10% of eligible voters in the southern German state well before the Wednesday evening deadline.

Environmental groups behind the push to radically change farming methods, including turning more grassland into meadow and ensuring a third of farms are organic over the next decade, are due to meet politicians to discuss the next stage in their drive.

As part of the campaign, thousands of people have rallied in the streets dressed in bee costumes, as well as staging a mass buzz-in in an attempt to produce the loudest ever buzz in the world.

The carnivalesque mood has helped secure popular support for the serious aims of the campaign to secure a long-term political commitment to safeguard the diversity of flora and fauna and improve the habitats of insects and birds, whose populations have plummeted in recent years.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Knitted bees were also taken to the rallies. Photograph: Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Among the demands are for 20% of land to be made bee-friendly within the next six years, and 30% by 2030. Environmental education in schools and businesses should also be increased.

The fact that more than 1 million people had signed the petition by Wednesday evening means politicians will ignore its demands at their peril.

The campaign was backed by the Greens, the Bavarian Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP) and conservation groups.

Ludwig Hartmann of the Greens said the more people signed the petition, the clearer the message was to Bavaria’s Christian Social Union government under the leadership of Markus Söder. “It’s time to turn the tide and set a new course for effective nature conservation in Bavaria,” he said.

Some farmers have criticised the campaign, however, saying their efforts to embrace environmentally-friendly policies while the financial pressures on them increase have often been ignored. “We are already doing a lot, but often this is dismissed,” said Walter Heidl, the president of the Bavarian Farmers’ Association.

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The campaign also demands that farmers rescue hedges and trees and preserve habitat on stream and river banks.

The state legislature is now obliged by law either to enact the petition or to propose alternative options. Negotiations must begin between its organisers and the CSU next week, and voters will have the final say on their outcome in a referendum later this year.

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Agnes Becker, the leader of the ÖDP, a very small force which initiated the poll, said that the bee was the symbol but represented a much bigger issue. “It’s not so much about the honey bee as it is about a very long and ever growing list of threatened species of animals and plants,” she told a heated televised debate on the campaign last week. “But the bee is our mascot, our symbol.”

She said she and her colleagues would stick to the demands laid out in the petition, which had been compiled after extensive consultation with scientists and lawyers, calling them the minimum required to reverse the damaging effects of intensive farming and global warming.

Recent German studies into species decline showed that the number of flying insects had dropped by almost 80% in nearly 30 years. More than 15% of songbirds were lost in the 10 years to 2009. Similar declines have been witnessed elsewhere in Europe and the world.

The campaigners said ordinary citizens were also being called on to change their lifestyles, including by not covering garden lawns with wood and concrete.

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