How to save insects and ourselves

“Turn the f@#$%&! climate change around”

Entomologists cited three major impacts propelling insect decline: habitat destruction (largely driven by agribusiness), the escalating climate crisis, and widespread pesticide use. A few went further, arguing overpopulation underpins all of these.

For Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselar Polytechnic Institute, who co-authored the landmark 2018 study identifying a 60-fold insect decline over 40 years in a Puerto Rico nature reserve, the priority must be climate change.

“We’ve got to reduce emissions. If we don’t, then, we can just hang up the future for our children, and our children’s children, and generations upon generations to come, because it’s going to be an unimaginably degraded world,” he says.

The upside of climate change is that the solution is so undeniably obvious: stop burning fossil fuels. The hindrance remains political. “In the shortest term,” says Salcido, “[We need to] vote [for] leaders that recognize the perils of global climate change [who] will be proactive both at home and on the international front.”

Given the extent to which climate change may already be driving insect decline in the tropics, Lister is highly interested in ensuring there are safe places where insects can weather worsening global warming. “[We] are thinking about what it’s going to take… [to] provide the insects with refugia, with corridors that connect those refugia, and perhaps, even creating microhabitats,” he says. This requires conserving diverse landscapes, such as high-altitude areas to give insects places to retreat from the heat.

Of course, even refugia may not matter, if we don’t as Janzen wrote succinctly: “Turn the f@#$%&! climate change around.”

Smarter on pesticides

Pesticide management may require a more nuanced approach. Some entomologists, for example, worry that banning one insecticide simply leads farmers to switch to potentially more toxic chemicals. Other researchers argue for tighter regulation now, while also searching out creative pest control alternatives.

“Pesticide practices need to be reviewed thoroughly, not only for their detrimental effects on insects, but whole ecosystems,” says Dr. Patricia Henriquez, a University Mayor entomologist in Argentina. “Their use should be reduced and, when allowed, replaced by sustainable practices.”

The EU is arguably the most aggressive in dealing with pesticides to date. This year it banned three controversial neonicotinoid pesticides from almost all crop uses, based on reams of data proving that neonicotinoids have long-standing impacts on bees and other pollinators.

Hans de Kroon, a Radboud University ecologist and co-author of a major 2017 insect abundance decline study out of Germany, calls the neonicotinoid ban an “important step” and a chance to study how insect abundance responds.

Axel Ssymank, an entomologist with the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, believes pesticide controls within the EU need to be even stronger, including total bans within protected areas and adjacent agricultural areas. He also favors prohibiting “full-field application of pesticides that include seed-coatings.” Today, many crop seeds are coated in neonicotinoids that spread up through a plant as it grows. Instead, he says, pesticides should only be applied when an active insect pest problem is detected.

Elsewhere, Bhutan has pledged to become the world’s first fully organic agriculture nation — with all pesticides prohibited — although no deadline has been set for the transition.

Not all entomologists favor outright bans. Dr. Dino Martins, who helps Kenyan farmers moderate pesticide use, says “the key issue is doing it intelligently.” He argues that developing countries with rapidly growing populations, like Kenya, must focus first on “food security and nutritional security.” But that still doesn’t mean spraying pesticides willy-nilly.

“What happens when you’re sick?… You go and see a doctor and you get a diagnosis.… When a plant is sick, immediately what we do is start pouring chemicals on it, often without identifying the problem,” says Martins, Executive Director of the Mpala Research Center in Kenya.

Working with farmers, Martins starts with education: “I show them an aphid or a whitefly through a magnifying glass or microscope. The look on their faces: one of absolute wonder and consternation because they didn’t realize this aphid is a little thing; it’s living with its family,” he explains. “Once people have that understanding, it’s much easier to have the next part of the conversation, about yes, you’re using a chemical, [but] is it going to kill the insect? Is it going to kill the soil? Is it going to kill you? What are the effects downstream? Can we do it better? Can we do it cheaper? And how do we do it long-term?”

The key, says Martins is finding ways to increase crop yield while decreasing pesticide use. He thinks that, with education and assistance, agricultural regions can play a vital role in offering habitat for insects, without sacrificing productivity. “I actually work on some farms that have higher levels of insect diversity than adjacent natural areas,” Martins reveals.

Farmers “need to heed the advice of scientists instead of following the advice of companies that sell chemicals for the sake of making money,” concludes University of Sydney ecologist Francisco Sanchez-Bayo. “The new Green Revolution needs to be truly ‘green’ in the modern sense of this word, unlike the old one that focused on chemicals.”