News from the gardening world
Report says help is urgently needed to bolster UK insect populations
Crashes in insect populations have ‘far reaching consequences for wildlife and people’ a new report has concluded. ‘Insect Declines And Why They Matter’, written by Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, highlights the lasting effects of the declines on insecteating birds, bats and fish and the cost to society in terms of millions of pounds in lost revenue and damage to ecosystems.
Commissioned by a group of Wildlife Trusts, the group is urging co-ordinated and concerted action from Government in the form of a new Environment Bill, in which everyone from local authorities, food growers, industry and the public can play their part to ensure insect populations recover and continue to play a crucial role in ecosystems. While the report presents scientific research from around the world, statistics from the UK are also stark, with 23 species of bee and flower-visiting insects extinct since 1850, the geographic ranges of bumblebees halved between 1960 and 2012 and the number of butterflies falling between 46 per cent between 1976 and 2017. Globally the report thinks up to 50 per cent of insects have been lost since 1970, with 41 per cent of earth’s remaining five million insect species now ‘threatened with extinction’.
The group supports introduction of ambitious and legally binding targets for pesticide reductions to protect invertebrates such as those implemented in some EU countries.
“It’s not just our wild bees and pollinators that are declining. Of serious concern is the little we know about the fate of many of the more obscure invertebrates that are also crucial to healthy ecosystems,” said Professor Goulson. “What we do know, however, is that the main causes of decline include habitat loss and fragmentation, and the overuse of pesticides.”