It all starts with the insects

I have written before about the great concern I have in the decline of insect numbers in Europe. Long term studies in a German nature reserve have shown that populations have declined by around 75% since 1989 - a catastrophic loss of environmental quality. The impact goes right up the food chain - old world fly catchers can eat 1.5kg of insects in the breeding season, and amphibians and reptiles that depend on insects are stressed and will decline. Once the amphibians start to go, smaller mammals will follow. Nature goes into imbalance, and other populations are threatened. Human growth in Africa means the loss of half of the continent's biodiversity - and growing Asian demands for meat and fish will mean these oceans will be practically depleted within two decades. 

And it's not just third-worlders who are responsible; every bastard who has block-paved his front garden, every proud housewife who fills her home with wasp killers, moth killers, ladybird terminators and all the panoply of chemical warfare insecticides is not only exterminating biodiversity but harming the long term health of her own family.

Biodiversity destroyers - write to them politely

And until the Catholic Church, itself complicit in the destruction of God's bounteous earth, His loving gift to man, repents of its grievous fault and sin it is in no position to dispense moral leadership in other areas of life. 

Though the Guardian does so from a political slant, its warnings are not exaggerated. We must all take action to halt this catastrophic loss of biodiversity - and this can start with writing polite letters to the inhabitants of houses who have block-paved their front gardens. They not only cause flooding that ruins the lives of thousands each year, but have created ecological deserts inimicable to life. Garden-pavers are simply anti-life and anti-social. Then throw out all the insecticides - welcome insects as part of living. 

It all starts with the insects. 

My resident fire salamander, at least 30 years old, who wanders the stream bed