Where have all the insects gone?

Welcome to Eco Matters, a regular column in the Advertiser focusing on the environment and biodiversity. This community-led column is written by local volunteers and will discuss the climate crisis, as well as offering practical advice for residents to reduce their carbon footprint and help nature thrive. This week, Angela Alexander looks at the harmful effects of pesticides.

You may recall drives through the countryside when the splatter of insects on your windscreen was a common thing.

But not anymore. This windscreen phenomenon is now used to track the global decline in insect populations caused by human activity, through monoculture and the use of pesticides – an umbrella term for herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

And it has been shown that this phenomenon is not related to cars being more aerodynamic, which some people suggest.

Thankfully more than one hundred UK local authorities have either ended, or

significantly reduced, their use of pesticides in urban areas and the EU is preparing to ban pesticides from towns and cities across all 27 member states.

So, will you and the Royal Borough follow? A local resident, King Charles, is an advocate for organic growing methods that decry the use of pesticides.

The harm produced by pesticides is not only to the insect population but to our own health.

In addition, glyphosate has also been found to harm pets and wildlife, including bees and has been classified as

‘toxic to aquatic life’ by the European

Chemicals Agency.

Using glyphosate on streets poses a particularly high-risk since chemicals tend to run off hard surfaces into waterbodies. This threatens to contaminate local water sources.

Pesticide use has a negative effect on urban wildlife and has been identified as a contributory factor in the decline of hedgehogs, which are now listed as ‘vulnerable’ on Britain’s red list of mammals.

According to the latest State of Britain’s hedgehogs report, numbers of hedgehogs have fallen by up to 30 per cent in urban areas and 50 per cent in rural areas since the Millennium.

So, what do we do instead of using pesticides? Perhaps initially we should learn to love the wildflowers in our urban areas.

Dandelions, a common pavement plant, can supply food to many different pollinators including bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies, day-flying moths and solitary bees. Other useful pavement plants include groundsel, chickweed, herb Robert and speedwell. We need to accept that these urban wildflowers are more than just weeds.

And what about our own gardens, let’s make them organic and stop the use of all pesticides so that they can become important wildlife habitats.

Being pesticide free is one of the key criteria to get a gold award in the local Wildlife Gardens Awards, organised by our local wildlife groups.

The Pete Seeger song Where Have All The Flowers Gone? concludes with the words ‘Oh, when will you ever learn?’.

Let’s all start to learn now and make a difference to our local biodiversity.

W The Eco Matters Column is a communityled project run by local volunteers. Views expressed are the contributor’s own. For information or to contribute to the column contact Andrew Ingram on ecomatters .today@gmail.com