{"id":4771,"date":"2022-06-20T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T05:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=4771"},"modified":"2022-07-05T11:54:35","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T10:54:35","slug":"rebugging-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/rebugging-the-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebugging the Planet\u00a0<\/span>Vicki Hird<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As my older son emerged dripping from the lake with a leech on his foot my excitement was infectious enough to send his brother wading back into the icy waters to get one of his own.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting blood-sucking leeches should be loved by everyone. That’s probably taking it too far. But if we want to stop the ongoing and dramatic decline in invertebrates – from worms to wood ants and bees to butterflies \u2013 we need to understand the crucial part they play in our lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because if we fail to save them, we will be in serious danger of living in an era so dystopian it is hard to even imagine. From pollinating fruit-flower to maintaining marine and freshwater nutrient flows, to processing soil and waste, invertebrates form an essential part of the food chain. And food chains can collapse fast. The tiny, almost invisible angels of the world are in deep trouble. We\u2019ve lost forests, hedges and messy wild places all over the globe: habitats where bugs live, travel through, recolonise, breed in, feed in and find shelter. Pesticides and industrial farming pollution, plastic, light and noise pollution and, increasingly climate change impacts are all taking their toll. In the past few years, seriously scary data has shown the extent to which we are losing them. Some suggest 40 percent of insect species alone are at risk of extinction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Politicians and industry, as well as individuals need to do all they can to prevent what amounts to an existential loss. In order to push decision-makers into taking action, the re-bugging movement needs to be expand rapidly, and gain momentum.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The good news is that we can all do something to help. Rewilding is a buzz word these days, with even the likes of Ed Sheeran planning to buy up as much land as he can to rewild. Rewildling is all about restoring large areas to their natural state and letting nature to heal itself after years of abuse and wildlife loss, while allowing large animals like wolves, or beavers to play a big role in the restoration. It\u2019s a fantastically important activity in critical places. Most of us don\u2019t have vast estates or farmland. But we can all rewild by making space for the bugs \u2013 as I\u2019ve done in my tiny urban garden – and changing attitudes one patch of land at a time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We don’t all have to love bugs. But we should believe in their importance, and recognise their astonishing diversity, beauty, structures and skills. I love the mutualism between bugs and other species. Take the bees that cut plant leaves to encourage earlier flowering. Or the vast weaver ant colonies that hang from trees, nurtured by forest farmers in Asia because they eat the tree-crop pests: this free biocontrol system eliminates any need for pesticides.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s because they seem so tiny and alien that many people perceive bugs as belonging to an alternative, irrelevant and even harmful universe. But they are very much of this world. And if we understand all that they offer, and all that we would die without, we can take steps to help them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, believe in these angels. And please share that belief – and any photos you take – with friends, family, colleagues, frankly everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a few tips about how to do that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n