No Insectinction!

 

 a green long horn moth 

Today Buglife launches their new campaign to highlight the crisis in insect populations across the world. No Insectinction aims to halt the declines in insects and has three main aims.

• Room for insects to thrive – we need to make space for wildlife and reconnect the wild parts of our landscapes
• Safe spaces for insects – we must free our land and freshwaters from pollutants and invasive species
• Friendlier relationship with insects – We need to act now to stop insectinction. However, the scale and quality of that action is still limited by our lack of understanding and awareness.

Many people overlook insects or actively dislike them. We briefly chatted yesterday (at a safe, two metre distance) with a woman who was going into one of our local cemeteries just as we were coming out, she was unsure to go in to walk because of 'all those flies!' We assured her that the flies were fine and it was lovely to walk round and she did.

The truth is that most insects are harmless to humans and most that do bite and sting only do so if you disturb them. In fact, many insects are fascinating and often beautiful.

Just look at the green long horn moth in the photo above! Now imagine hundreds of those, dancing in the air around a tree, which is something we saw a few days ago. Beautiful!

Butterflies, moths, dragonflies, damselflies, hoverflies and many many more insects are well worth noticing. They are also vital to the functioning of the world around us. Bees, hoverflies and other insects pollinate flowers and enable plants to reproduce. Many insects are food for birds and other animals. Some insects are pests, of course (think of the locusts swarming parts of Africa at the moment), but most of those only become pests when things get out of balance and often the best control for an insect pest is another insect that will eat the pest species.

The easiest insects to learn to love for most people are butterflies. If you're in the UK, you can join in Big Butterfly Count which runs from Friday 17 July - Sunday 9 August 2020. 

for Nature Notes.