Research

Article:The long read

‘A different dimension of loss’: inside the great insect die-off

Interesting article about the massive loss of insect population, which also mentions the 'sixth extinction'. Some scientists argue that insect populations are going extinct up to 100x faster than they would without human-caused effects on the environment. 

"Everywhere, invertebrates are threatened by climate change, competition from invasive species and habitat loss. Insect abundance seems to be declining precipitously, even in places where their habitats have not suffered notable new losses. A troubling new report from Germany has shown a 75% plunge in insect populations since 1989, suggesting that they may be even more imperilled than any previous studies suggested."

Another article I have come across, also by the Guardian, is named: Insectageddon: farming is more catastrophic than climate breakdown

This article highlights how the more immediate danger to insect life on this planet comes from our agriculture techniques and habits. And it not only affects insects: 

"According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, at current rates of soil loss, driven largely by poor farming practice, we have just 60 years of harvests left. And this is before the Global Land Outlook report, published in September, found that productivity is already declining on 20% of the world’s cropland."

But anyone of my generation (ie in the second bloom of youth) can see and feel the change. We remember the “moth snowstorm” that filled the headlight beams of our parents’ cars on summer nights (memorialised in Michael McCarthy’s lovely book of that name). Every year I collected dozens of species of caterpillars and watched them grow and pupate and hatch. This year I tried to find some caterpillars for my children to raise. I spent the whole summer looking and, aside from the cabbage whites on our broccoli plants, found nothing in the wild but one garden tiger larva. Yes, one caterpillar in one year. I could scarcely believe what I was seeing – or rather, not seeing.