Val Bourne: attitudes about wildlife preservation are changing, says Val
Val looks at a report aiming to reverse the decline of insects
“Pesticides do untold damage to ecosystems”
IHAVE been fascinated by insect life since I was tiny, and when
I was only two or three years old I remember watching a bumblebee visit a dark aquilegia on an May morning. I became even more interested in insects when I had a lowly post in vegetable research in the 1970s. I had to look down a microscope at greenfly and, after making sure that their feeding tube wasn’t stuck into the infected plant, I had to move them on to new plants. Nothing prepares you for the beauty of an aphid seen through a high-power lens, as the more magnification you use, the more mind-boggling it becomes.
A decade later in the 1980s, when I was teaching, I borrowed a lot of equipment and took my class out to look for ‘minibeasts’ in the school grounds. In those days insect life was abundant, but a team of workmen came in every week and strimmed, mowed and sprayed the area. After a fruitless afternoon of searching the school grounds, we found diddly-squat!
So I asked the headteacher if we could go to the local churchyard. When we arrived the next day the air was alive with tiny flecks of movement, and the grass had plenty of beetles and grubs. The birdsong was terrific because insect life abounded in the churchyard, purely because it wasn’t over-neatened and tidied. In short, it had its own ecosystem, and plenty of people loved sitting on the benches watching the wildlife.
Unfortunately, much of the abundance of the 1980s has gone, and the new chief executive officer of the Wildlife Trusts, Craig Bennett, wants to see that change. A new downloadable pamphlet, entitled
Reversing the Decline of Insects, is full of inspirational stories ( wildlifetrusts.org).
For instance, Shrewsbury Cemetery, in Shropshire, has recorded 255 species of wildflower and 280 invertebrates in its five hectares since it stopped weekly strimming and introduced an annual cutting regime that is carried out by volunteers. There’s been an increase in moths, butterflies, seed-eating birds and signs of small mammals, including hedgehogs. It will have also helped the council’s budget, freeing money up for better things.
I attended a family burial at a church near Stroud in Gloucestershire recently, where paths were cut through the grass and wildflowers, and wild orchids grew among the graves. Brown argus butterflies accompanied the coffin, lifting our spirits, and every time I see this butterfly I think of my late cousin-in-law. Many churchyards are now allowing a balance of wilder areas, as well as tidier ones. I hope and pray that this may occur in my own village in time.
Eco-warrior Craig Bennett, former CEO of Friends of the Earth, believes attitudes are changing. “Even 10 or 15 years ago you never saw grass being allowed to grow long in parks and gardens, or on local authority sites, schools or campuses,” says Craig. “More local authorities are allowing grass to grow longer. Once upon a time people would have thought this was messy, but people celebrate this now because they know it’s important for pollinators. It’s the abundance of our species that tell you about the health of our ecosystems. The conservation debate over the past 100 years has concentrated far too much on whether species are extinct or not.”
This is an important sea change, because the Wildlife Trusts have more nature reserves than Macdonald’s have restaurants – and that’s quite a thought. There are 2,300 reserves and 60% of us live within three miles of a Wildlife Trusts reserve. Craig also wants to reduce pesticide use. The report states: “We apply 16.9 thousand tons of pesticides on our countryside every year, and that does not include what we spray in our towns and our cities.”
Pesticides kill across the board, so as gardeners target their aphids they kill a lot of other creatures, too. Pesticides do untold damage to ecosystems and they’re not very good for us, either!