Bug Man’s warning: ‘We act like toddlers playing with fire’
After dire warnings of disappearing insects, it’s time to track down The Bug Man to find out what’s so imortant about our creepy-crawlies.
What Ruud Kleinpaste doesn’t know about insects, you could write on an ant’s butt.
Born in Indonesia, he was educated in the Netherlands and emigrated to New Zealand in 1978 where after a 14-year stint as an entomologist for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, he forged a media career during which his knowledge and passion for insects earned him the fond nickname of the Bug Man.
My first encounter with him was as an 18-year-old year cadet reporter writing a story about a high mosquito season in Auckland. I rang the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to find an expert and was put through to him. He patiently answered all my dumb questions on what people could do about the mozzies, and it became my first story to make the front page of the paper.
Kleinpaste had a way of talking about insects that made you realise how interesting and important they were, so it was no surprise to see him make a career of doing exactly that internationally via his highly acclaimed series for Animal Planet.
Last year he became an honorary Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to entomology, conservation and entertainment. And it shows an extraordinary set of skills when your medal from the queen is for combining your passion for insects with entertainment. The guy is a national treasure.
So, when the news came out this week that the planet’s insects are dying off at an alarming rate, I could think of no better person than Kleinpaste, to ask just how bad things are.
Ecosystems can’t function without the millions of insects that make up the enormously important base of the food chain. As Kleinpaste says: ‘‘The world is run by bugs. The honeybee pollinates one third of your diet.’’
‘‘Everybody eats somebody else. Everything is connected. Together with plants. Because insects have this symbiotic relationship, they give us healthy land, healthy soil, healthy crops and healthy people.’’
Now a new review in the journal Biological Conservation suggests human activity and climate change are hammering away at this hugely important foundation of our food chain.
The review states: ‘‘We estimate the current proportion of insect species in decline… to be twice as high as that of vertebrates, and the pace of local species extinction… eight times higher. It is evident that we are witnessing the largest (insect) extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods.’’ (That’s about 299 million years ago, for those not as familiar with the late Permian period as I am.)
This is not news to Kleinpaste who’s been trying to change the mindset of humans towards insects since forever. He says what’s at stake is ‘‘the integrity of the biosphere’’ and describes it as ‘‘the biggest OSH story on the planet’’.
‘‘The cause is reduction of their habitat. We call it development but things like economic growth at all costs, that sort of stuff is what causes this. Another cause is artificial pesticides, chemicals… those are really important. The stuff we use in industry, in our house, the ones we use to eradicate ants in your garden. Why would you do want to get rid of the ants in your garden?’’
If insects’ importance to our food isn’t enough, consider another function such as recycling which Kleinpaste says they do 24/7 for free. ‘‘Your dog does a couple of poos a day. If there were no insects who consume and bury dung, in a few fears we’d be under many feet of dung.’’
It isn’t hard to get Kleinpaste fired up when talking about insects. He waxes lyrical about how amazing cockroaches are and how they’ve been the planet’s best recyclers for 350 million years, and gushes about the beauty of tree weta, which at 180 million years old have been around on earth as long as the dinosaurs were.
‘‘There’s been life on this planet for 3.8 billion years. We only came on the scene 100,000 years ago. A couple of seconds before midnight in terms of the big scale. We’re a very young inexperienced species, who came into an already sustainable planet, and we act like toddlers playing with fire.’’
What can we do to help? A start would be to not instinctively kill every insect you come across. As Kleinpaste says: ‘‘We need to become a welcome species on this planet. Be mindful, you are living with other species that I call genius. We need to rediscover the operations manual of planet earth. Teach that to our teachers and kids.’’
‘It shows an extraordinary set of skills when your medal from the queen is for combining your passion for insects with entertainment. The guy is a national treasure.’