In the 1998 Pixar film “A Bug’s Life,” Flik, the ant protagonist, asserts the importance of his species, telling the bullying grasshopper villain, “It’s you who need us!”
While Flik and Co. predictably triumph in the movie, proving that they are essential to their local ecosystem, we humans could likely all do with a reminder of the importance of our planet’s insects, which are dying off at an alarming rate and threatening a tremendous ecological disaster.
A global scientific review recently published by Biological Conservation found that more than 40 percent of insect species are declining and a third are endangered. The total mass of insects is falling by 2.5 percent a year, meaning that they could be extinct within 100 years.
The importance of insects to our planet cannot be overstated. Each insect species — there are at least 91,000 in the U.S. alone — carries out a unique function that helps the world go ‘round. By recycling nutrients, pollinating flowers or becoming a tasty snack for another critter, insects have made themselves indispensable to life on Earth.
In an interview with The Guardian, Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, at the University of Sydney, Australia, who wrote the scientific review with Kris Wyckhuys at the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, warned of the consequences of sustained insect decline. “If insect species losses cannot be halted,” he said, “this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of mankind.”
So what is to blame for this looming crisis? Industrialized farming and the use of pesticides, according to Mr. Sánchez-Bayo.
As opposed to the farming of yore, fields are often now laid bare to maximize production, removing all the surrounding trees and shrubs that provided housing to insects. Add in pesticides developed in the latter half of the 20th century, namely neonicotinoids and fipronil, and insects have not stood much of a chance.
Human beings must do more to preserve the species with which we share this planet, if for no reason other than our survival depends on it. If this means scaling back industrial farming, resorting to more organic techniques, then so be it. The consequences of ignoring this problem, however, are likely to be quite grave.
So let us all heed Flik’s reminder: We need insects. Without them, our time on Earth might come to a rapid halt.
First Published: March 23, 2019, 12:00 p.m.
