Plummeting insect numbers

I have recently downsized, and now have no garden. My house is on the market, and I do worry that whoever buys it will tidy up the large wild garden, or even, horror of horrors, pave it! It was very good for insects, though even so there were noticeably fewer than there used to be. I wouldn’t have dreamt of using pesticides.

What about people who aren't able to tend their garden?
That is going to become more and more prevalent as we live longer.

Problem is today everyone is selfish and it is a consumer society. Drastic change in attitudes required. Planning laws need to prevent people concreting over gardens. We need to encourage wildflowers, trees and hedges. Vegan diet is hugely important also as uses a lot less energy - crops and water - and will slow global warming. We need to eat organic. And we need to buy less stuff and use housing more efficiently.

Its not as simple as planting flowers.
Car fumes affect insects ability to smell flowers..

our garden - not a garden!

Washerwoman that reminds me of when my dear MIL came to stay, had a wander round a garden and observed 'I do like a bit of a wild garden' (it wasn't actually meant to be like that, although we do have a hawthorn hedge!).

Heading the TV news tonight - goalkeeper's death.
Well, not just any goalkeeper - this was news.

The planet is still here to be saved and we will be hearing more.

More arable land is used for growing crops to feed livestock which could be used to feed humans. A plant based diet uses far less land, water and produces fewer emissions, so definitely better for the planet. People don’t want to give up food they are used to, but maybe some could be persuaded to eat less meat, every little helps.,

Washerwoman don't be too upset, spiders and scorpions like rocky terrain. They can nip next door to feed then have their babies in the gaps between the paving stones. That is if they're not eating each other, which they seem to quite like to do!

We moved to a bungalow 2 years ago with a pretty but sterile garden. Full of exotic plants no good for insects. This year we are planting wildflowers, making a pond and letting half of the lawn grow long. I’m so excited about it.

Grammaretto. ??

Washerwoman i think we may be neighbours. The last remaining field between our town and the city has a notice advertising it as planning permission received , ripe for development while empty units lie abandoned. Is it so much more difficult to build on brownfield sites?

It breaks my heart to see how many gardens around us have been paved over and fenced off ,like a sterile box.No shrubs,no hedges .The worst I've seen recently is a garden with a plastic ivy and plastic flowers.!We are lucky to have a large garden and we keep bees,have hawthorn and beech hedges and a wild area.
Also upset that the fields nearby bordering a lovely wood are about to be bulldozed despite nearby brownfield sites remaining derelict and undeveloped.
If everyone made some small tweaks to their lifestyle,eat less meat,help local wildlife,fly only when essential and stop littering for example the planet might stand a chance.Unfortunately ,sadly too many people are unwilling to change habits ,and it's incredibly selfish and short sighted.

Let the nettles, daisies and dandelions grow.
I think we're conditioned to think a garden has to have a lawn and because we get tired of mowing them, we end up laying concrete slabs. We should retrain our aesthetics and learn to love weeds..

AlieOxon Chris Packham's programme on population is to be an episode of the Horizon series, but I'm afraid I can't find out when it will be shown. He is a Patron, along with many other well know people, of Population Matters. A group I am thinking of joining.
It's good to read of several posters also concerned about this. The trouble is the politicians think there are no votes in it, so its up to us to make a noise!

I have a large wild area in my garden. Look out of your window and, if it's mostly slabs or decking, do something about tomorrow. One good thing will come out of the unfortunate insects' extinction though and that will be the demise of the human race. Hopefully, that will happen before we have the technology to escape from this planet and ruin another one!

CardiffJaguar you're right. Use plenty of our native wildflowers that our insects depend on so much. They also depend on others as well. Although not great bees love Himalayan Balsam. I keep bees and I know when they're working it because they come back with a white stripe down their backs. Garden organically, forget pesticides and let nature take it's course. Read the book Wilding, can't remember who wrote it but it's about a farm they left to go wild and it's amazing.

Culag I meant to say, when and where is this programme on global population with Chris Packham on?

Anyone who had difficulty getting to the Extinction Rebellion site - there's another link at the bottom of the page. Lots of events going on. They made the news.... a few months back.

And the BBC article I linked to, having hovered at 10. 8, 9 has now dropped out of their Most Read list. Heading the TV news tonight - goalkeeper's death.

I'm not convinced that we need to eat vegan to save the planet. We could eat meat if we raised the animals humanely (outside, fed on grass - actually gives us healthier meat) and just raised less of them (and ate less meat). This would give us: less slurry, less methane, and more grain planted for humans to eat and not animals. And if we all ate less, generally, there would be no obesity crisis. Does anyone-else remember when a chicken was a real treat on a Sunday? Now, people expect it in a sandwich every day, and the birds are raised in terrible conditions to meet the demand for cheap food (also very polluting for the environment). We need to eat less meat; we don't need to become vegetarian or vegans. Just my opinion.

I don't think it could keep up with the numbers.....

To save the planet we are supposed to eat a vegan diet.

Would producing enough vegan food to feed the world's population be possible without using insecticides?

Humans are terribly destructive creatures and, in the history of our beautiful Earth, they've done more damage than any other species, and they've hardly been around any time at all. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. If you plotted out a 4.6 km walk, humans would appear in the last 20cm (200,000 years) - that's how little we've been here. Hard to say when we have loved ones but the Earth needs us to die out, so that it can survive.

Don’t worry, President Chump has it all under control.
Climate change is a complete myth, let me tell ya, and he really knows all about science. Science is good, and it’s really big, like space, which is also really big, and he knows better than anyone how big it all is.
Besides, the world will come off its axis if he doesn’t get re-elected!

Have just planted 27 trees (including native Hawthorn especially for the birds) in our garden to encourage pollinators to survive. I get really upset when people chop down natural hedging and trees and concrete over their gardens. Please let nature have a chance in your garden, however big or small it is.

When we were school children we were often taken on nature walks and had the purpose of insects explained and taught to us so that we had an appreciation of how the whole of creation works together for the benefit of all. Obviously it is sadly not happning so much nowadays.
We are having a couple of areas in our garden turned into very mini wild flower meadowns and have erected bug hotels. Really hope it works well for all interested parties and looks pretty too.
Our DIL has just completed the second year of keeping bees and they are thriving. She leaves her bees with plenty of their own honey to get them through the winter because she has been taught that it is better for the bees which must be so as she had to get another hive last year and is anticipating at least another one again this year. It is important thst we all grow whatever we can to increase the availability of nectar during as much of the year as we possibly can. I have a friend who sows wild flower seeds around where she lives and says she has noticed a beneficial difference in the bird and insect population over the years she has been doing it. I just hope our garden will help in that respect too.
We occasionally see a hedgehog in our garden but no babies as yet. Perhaps it is a boy?!