Where have all the insects gone?

By Angela Verley - 04/08/2008

I live in London and have been increasingly concerned this summer about the lack of insects. The buddleias are flowering profusely but there are no butterflies dancing around them. So I thought that perhaps I was looking in the wrong place - a big city. Not so.

When I visited Wakehurst Place last week in the beautiful Sussex countryside I noticed that even here away from the noise, disturbance and pollution of London there were very few insects. More worryingly, around the dragonfly pond with its information boards informing us that these creatures are the indicators of the health of the environment - there were none. Just one single damselfly and about six butterflies, four of which were cabbage whites. Yet only three years ago I sat in the sun at the edge of a similar dragonfly pond in Nottinghamshire and watched dozens of every colour, shape and size buzzing around and darting here and there among the lush, native plants.

We have heard quite a lot about the demise of the bee population, but the demise of other insect populations seems to have gone unnoticed, unmourned and ignored. Yet surely we do so at our peril. Sir David Attenborough has highlighted the plight of  rare butterflies in launching the Save Our Butterflies Appeal, but it seems that the problem is far more urgent than just the rare butterflies. They all need our help to hang on to their fragile habitats, and if these creatures are abandoning us we are in serious trouble.

Most of us live our busy lives without thinking about these small creatures - or we simply see them as nothing but a nuisance. Yet the demise of the wasp population may well have contributed to the devastation of Dutch Elm disease in the sixties and seventies.  And since then the amount of human activity in the countryside has exploded.

 

In particular, the planting of monoculture and GMO crops, the removal of hedgerows and blanket spraying, cars and the unrelenting spread of acres of tarmac, concrete, the paving of front gardens and the planting of non-native trees, shrubs and flowers. Then there is our general dislike of wasps and creepy crawlies, so aggressive domestic spraying policies have all contributed to their demise. And don't forget the destruction of old pastures and meadows, the draining of ponds and general water pollution.

But the most disturbing thing of all is that no-one seems to have noticed. We are so absorbed in our busy round of human-focused activity that the other species on which depend for our very existence, and who share this fragile and crowded planet do not get a look in.

For instance, John Hunt, the Business Enterprise Secretary said recently at the opening of the Farnborough Airshow that the expansion of Heathrow would be going ahead "as business could not be dictated to by the greens". Yet we may not have a choice now but to try and back-peddle as much as we can and put right much of the damage done to the environment in the name of progress.  

The acres of grass need to be allowed to flower and not cut back every week. Allotments need to be encouraged and not concreted over, parks need to be full of native flowering trees, shrubs and flowers  - and not the sterile unattractive, exotic specimems hostile for insects. Local authorities can do an enormous amount by encouraging schools, colleges and museums to set up hives, insect breeding centres and participate in native gardening and allotment schemes.  

Above all, we need to cut down on noise and pollution generally and become more insect friendly and aware. Strewn rubbish, for example, are death traps for insects and pollute the soil. Cigarette stubs will pollute the soil when it rains. The very loud noise from airports and constant fumes from traffic and other human activity must be very confusing for insects with their sensitive smell capabilities.  

We can share this planet with others - but time is running out. Surely it must be worth educating our politicians and the public to become more insect and environmentally friendly in our attitudes before it is too late?

Mature Times comments:

Angela Verley makes a very important point. As far back as 2003, The Telegraph's Environment Editor, Michael McCarthy, wrote about what he called "a little-publicised environmental phenomenon - the widespread disappearance of insects", and recommended something called a "splatometer" for cars.

"A splatometer is a postcard-sized piece of plastic film fitted to the front of your car and measures the number of airborne bugs that splat against it during a road journey. It is intended to give a statistical basis to a growing public perception - that a lot fewer of them are about than there used to be.

"It was devised by conservation scientists at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds who intend it to be used by tens of thousands of people in a mass "citizen science" exercise, like its Big Garden Birdwatch, which more than 300,000 people responded to this year.

"Concerned over declines in many bird species, the RSPB thinks - like a growing number of conservationists - that a general decline in insect numbers may well be responsible. Bumblebees, mayflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and many other insect species appear to be tumbling in numbers and vanishing from many places - the common species as much as the rare ones.
It is a critical development, because insects are the most numerous of all organisms and underpin all ecosystems, providing food for countless other species and playing a crucial role in plant pollination.

"But it is only just being noticed ..."