DIMITRI LASCARIS: This is Dimitri Lascaris,
reporting for The Real News Network from Montreal,
Canada.As has been widely reported, the Earth
is at the start of the sixth mass extinction
in its history.
Major losses and larger animal species that
are relatively easy to study have already
been documented and widely reported.
But insect losses have received less scrutiny
and attention, even though insects are by
far the most varied and abundant animals,
outweighing humanity by 17 times.
Now a new study has concluded that more than
40 percent of insect species are declining,
and a third are endangered.
That rate of extinction is eight times faster
than that of mammals, birds, and reptiles.
The total mass of insects is falling by a
precipitous 2.5 percent per year, according
to the available data.Now here to discuss
this new study with us is one of its coauthors,
Dr. Francisco Sanchez-Bayo.
Doctor Sanchez-Bayo is an ecologist working
on the impact of human activities on ecosystems.
His specific field is exotoxicology, the study
of impacts caused by chemicals on organisms
and ecosystems.
He joins us today from Sydney, Australia.
Thank you for coming onto The Real News.
Dr. Sanchez-Bayo.FRANCISCO SANCHEZ-BAYO: Thank
you for having me.DIMITRI LASCARIS: So I'd
like to start by inviting you to talk to us
briefly about what you consider to be the
most important aspects and findings of this
study.FRANCISCO SANCHEZ-BAYO: Well, it's basically
what you just reported, so that about 40 percent--in
fact, 41 percent, on average--of all the species
that we know of insects are declining right
now.
And about one third of them are threatened
with extinction in the next few decades.
And on top of that, we know through three
different reports that the average rate of
decline in biomass of all the insects in different
parts of the world--in Puerto Rico, the United
Kingdom, as well as Germany--is really similar;
it's about 2.5 percent per year, which means
that in about 100 years from now practically
all the insects will be gone from the earth.
That's a really shocking finding that probably
very few people knew about.And what we have
tried to do in our study is to put together
all these data that was lost in many scientific
journals, that were only available to these
experts and specialists in entomology, and
tried to bring it to the public, to people
involved in conservation issues, as well as
to the general public.DIMITRI LASCARIS: So
your study leads to the conclusion that current
rates of decline, if they persist, the Earth
will essentially be insect-free within about
a century.FRANCISCO SANCHEZ-BAYO: Well, there
will always be a few insects that will survive.
But basically, yes.DIMITRI LASCARIS: Yeah.
So, as I'm sure you know, many people in the
world seem to view insects as a nuisance,
and expend significant resources, you know,
through the use of, example, of pesticides
and other devices and technologies to kill
insects.
Why should ordinary human beings be concerned
about these rather stunning findings from
your study?FRANCISCO SANCHEZ-BAYO: Because
first of all, people are concerned that way
because we only see the nuisance pests.
They just see the flies, the cockroaches,
and in their agricultural fields we only see
the pest species.
But we have to remember for every pest species
that we may get in a crop, there are about
20 or 30 different insects that are beneficial.
There are predators, there are [inaudible].
There are others which simply--they don't
cause any harm or any good.
But all of them have essential roles to play
in ecosystems.
Nothing is superfluous here in the biosphere
on the Earth.So among the most important ecological
role is that insects play is, for example,
pollination, nutrient recycling and purification,
and also providing food to a large array of
vertebrates; from birds and bats to lizards,
frogs, and even fish in freshwater ecosystems.
So all these essential services will go.
And with them, if they go, will go the fertility
of the soil, the capacity of producing food
for ourselves, because 70 percent of the food
we eat requires pollination by insects.
And of course, all the animals that depend
on these insects as their food source will
go as well.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And you mentioned
pollinators, and I want to focus on one type
of pollinator in particular: bees.
What is our current state of bee populations
around the world?
Are they declining as rapidly as some reports
have suggested, and how do you think their
extinction would affect the food supplies?FRANCISCO
SANCHEZ-BAYO: Yes.
I think I mentioned, it will affect about
70 percent of the food items that we have,
among the different crops.
So we will end up eating only cereals that
don't require pollination, and a few other
crops like that.
But all the fruits, and most vegetables, we
won't be able to eat, because they require
pollination by bees.
When I mean bees, it's not just the honeybees
that probably you're thinking of, but also
the wild bees.
Bees are not declining any faster than the
other groups, in fact.
They are not declining as fast as butterflies,
or many beetles, particularly dung beetles,
which seem to be the ones most at risk at
the moment.
But still, it's a big proportion.
For example, in Europe about half the species
of bees are declining right now.
I don't know exactly in Canada how many of
that proportion.
But it's really similar worldwide.DIMITRI
LASCARIS: And, finally, what lifestyle changes
do you recommend that we make, and what policies
you recommend governments adopt in order to
halt this rather alarming decline in insect
populations?FRANCISCO SANCHEZ-BAYO: Well,
one thing I forgot to mention before is we,
together with the numbers that we collected
from 73 surveys worldwide, we also analyzed
the drivers of the decline.
What was really affecting the different groups
of insects.
There are many drivers.
We selected about 13 or 14, and we put it
into four main groups.
And the main driver behind the decline seems
to be habitat loss, which is due to a combination
of three major factors.
Agricultural expansion intensification, urbanisation,
and deforestation.
The second major factor is chemical pollution,
and that's due not just to industrial chemicals,
but also fertilizers and pesticides.Now, it's
interesting that fertilizers and pesticides
are mostly used in agricultural settings.
So agriculture as a whole is the major impacting
factor, because it involves habitat destruction,
as well as chemical pollution.
And those two factors combined, they're driving
most of the species to extinction.So if we
want to stop this rapid decline, we should
focus all our efforts on the main drivers;
and as I say, agriculture is the main one.
So perhaps what we have to do, and we have
recommended in our conclusions, is to change
the way we are carrying out agriculture at
the moment.
And there are many ways that this can be done,
so it's not just one specific way.
But basically it'll consist in making agriculture
sustainable.
So where we can see the beneficial insects,
the pollinators, as part of the system, we
don't eliminate them.
With the current system where we use insecticides
from the day of planting, because they are
recovering the seeds that are planted, with
that we have eliminated all the insects, good
and bad.
And that's no good.
So we lost--we lost all the beneficial insects,
all the pollinators, and all the parasitoids
that help in the first place withstand the
outbreak of pests, and all the organisms that
are in the soil that do the recycling of nutrients.
So we have to change that.
We have to go back to integrated pest management
procedures, and implement them to the full,
and recover that sustainability that has been
in agriculture for centuries, millennia.
We are losing that right now with the new
system.DIMITRI LASCARIS: Well, we've been
speaking to Dr. Francisco Sanchez-Bayo about
a new study showing a precipitous decline
in global insect populations.
Thank you very much for joining us today,
Doctor.FRANCISCO SANCHEZ-BAYO: Thank you for
having me.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And this is Dimitri
Lascaris, reporting for The Real News Network.
