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Insects are disappearing

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across the world.

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If we lost our pollinators,

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we would lose 80 to 90% of the plants on the planet.

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That is not an option.

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It's the ecosystems on this planet

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that keep humans alive.

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Scientists warn us

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that the insect apocalypse

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is entirely possible.

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As we expand the human population,

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we keep making these sterile landscapes,

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and nature is pushed out.

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Without the ecological services

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that insects provide,

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we are doomed.

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(upbeat music)

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Insects are the most abundant animals on earth.

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It's estimated that the total weight

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of our insect population

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is at least 17 times greater than all of humanity.

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They provide the essential services necessary

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to support life.

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They pollinate about 80% of all plants,

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including about 75% of our food crops.

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They decompose dead plants and animals

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and thereby recycle nutrients back into the system.

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They manage the soil,

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and they are the essential food base

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for other animals, especially birds and freshwater fish.

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Annual ecosystem services provided

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by wild insects in the U.S,

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have been estimated at $57 billion.

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Scientists have identified

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and described about 66,000 animal and fish species.

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In contrast, insect species add up to about a million,

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and the number yet to be identified

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could amount to another 20 million or more.

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There are more than 160,000 kinds of moths in the world.

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Butterflies add up to about 17,500 species.

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There are nearly 20,000 types of bees

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and more than 12,000 kinds of ants.

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Beetle species total nearly 400,000.

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In light of those huge numbers,

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it's easy to believe that the insect abundance is endless,

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but is it?

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(upbeat music)

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As these trillions upon trillions of insects remain busy

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with the central ecological tasks,

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entomologists and concerned citizen scientists

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are noticing troubling trends

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in the woods, fields and back yards.

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Is it possible that the world's insect population

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is beginning to crash?

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Scientists knew there were serious ecological problems

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stemming from habitat loss, climate change,

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and the pervasive use of pesticides and herbicides.

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But there was little data to quantify the extent

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of the damage to insect populations

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and nothing to support a global alarm,

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until a long-term study

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by a German entomological club came to light.

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The Krefeld entomological society near Dusseldorf

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has collected and curated insect specimen records

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since 1864.

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Over the years, these citizen scientists maintain

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a rigidly consistent collection program,

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and they preserved the insects they caught

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using standardized nets

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and meticulous identification and storage routines.

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In later years, they were noticing fewer

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and fewer insects filling their jars and boxes

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from their seasonal trips

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to 63 nature preserves representing virtually every type

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of natural habitat in the region.

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They employed a unique method of weighing their collection

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and shared the results with university scientists

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who confirmed a 76% seasonal decline

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over the previous 27 years,

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and the mid summer decline amounted to a shocking 82%.

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It was time to sound the alarm.

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Ecology professor and author, Dr. Dave Goulson

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of the university of Sussex explains the situation.

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There's one aspect of insect declines

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that people have noticed,

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particularly if they're of a certain age,

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{\an8}I guess maybe 50 or more years old.

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{\an8}I can remember when I was a kid,

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{\an8}that if we drove any distance in the summer,

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{\an8}we'd have to stop and clean the windscreen

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{\an8}of the car every hour or two,

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because it would be literally impossible to see through

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because it was covered in splattered insects,

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today that just doesn't happen.

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In 2014, a panel

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of scientists synthesized current insect populations studies

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and found that most of the monitored species

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had declined on average by 45%.

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This disappearance of insects

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is something that people should take really seriously

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because whatever you think about them,

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insects are vitally important

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to every single human on the planet.

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They can be intimately involved

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in more or less every ecological process

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that you can think of: nutrient cycling,

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keeping the soils healthy, breaking down dead bodies,

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dead trees, leaves, bio control,

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controlling pest numbers and so on and so on.

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And most famously of course, they pollinate our crops.

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75% of the crops we grow globally

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require insect pollination.

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So we wouldn't have a whole sway,

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the fruits and vegetables that we require

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to keep us healthy.

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Everything from apples and cherries to blueberries,

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raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, squashes, pumpkin,

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I could go on and on and on,

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even includes coffee and chocolate

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all require insect pollination.

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So life would be pretty miserable without these things,

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and the horrible truth is the millions of people

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would starve to death if we didn't have insect pollinators.

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So whatever you think about insects, we need them,

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and we need to look after them.

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So far as we know,

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insect declines are being driven by a whole bunch

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of different factors.

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Probably the biggest globally is habitat loss

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from the tropical forests

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to the flower rich hay meadows of the UK.

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In the UK we-

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a hundred years ago,

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we had about 7 million hectares

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of flower rich grasslands, hay meadows, and Jordan.

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They would have been teeming with butterflies

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and bumblebees and all sorts of other insects.

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And we destroyed 97% of it in the 20th century,

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and so habitat loss is a big one,

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but then on top of that,

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and it's kind of associated with it,

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a lot of that habitat loss is too intensive.

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Farming, which involves

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a lot of pesticide use,

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a whole barrage of insecticides and fungicides

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and herbicides going on to farmland all the time.

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We shouldn't really be surprised if they disappear.

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This issue seems to have come upon us quickly.

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Large scale declines that have happened

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within my lifetime,

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and to think that, you know,

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more than half the butterflies have gone

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since I was a kid,

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is really disturbing.

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It's not just Europe,

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it's certainly happening in North America,

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there's good data on Monarch butterflies,

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and how they've been fairing,

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but they've all but disappeared.

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Scientists estimate

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that a complete insect population collapse

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would mean the end of human life

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within two months.

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What then are our prospects for a positive outcome?

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Good news,

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insects can recover.

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Rather few of them have gone extinct yet,

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lots of them heading towards it

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but if we take action now it's not too late.

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And the nice thing about insects

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is they actually breed very quickly

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given the right conditions,

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so they could recover in no time at all

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if we gave them somewhere to live,

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something to eat,

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stop poisoning them and so on.

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But insects need places to recover

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and our scattered collection

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of nature parks and forest won't be enough.

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Right now,

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at least 85% of the land East of the Mississippi

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is privately owned,

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and much of that property is a monoculture

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of suburban and urban lawns,

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or is being used for large scale food production.

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Landscapes that for insect

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and ecological purposes

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might as well be parking lots.

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In short we've drained, cut and paved nature,

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and we've curved it into pieces too small

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and isolated to sustain the native insects and animals

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that make our ecosystems work.

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Douglas Tallamy,

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the chief entomology professor

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at the university of Delaware,

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has a New York times bestseller out,

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"Nature's Best Hope".

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And he has a plan.

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(birds chirping)

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If you look at the way we landscape,

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{\an8}humans are here and nature some place else,

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{\an8}and then there's no more someplace else's.

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And as we expand the human population,

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we keep making these sterile landscapes,

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and nature is pushed out.

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So that is why things are declining.

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You might think

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that with so many species of insects

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in their abundance,

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the system should be able to adjust

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to human population expansion and lifestyles,

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but that's not how it works,

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in fact, 90% of the insects that eat plants,

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develop and reproduce only on certain plants

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with which they share an evolutionary history.

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Specialization is really common

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in the world of insects,

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both with pollinators

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and with the insects that eat plants.

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We've got over 4,000 species of native bees,

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and at least a third of them can only reproduce

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in the pollen of particular plant genera.

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And the reason all these insects are so specialized

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is because plants don't want to be eaten,

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they want to capture the energy

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from the sun and use it

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for their own growth and reproduction,

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so they protect their tissues with nasty compounds,

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and the insects have to adapt

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to those phytochemicals in order

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to be able to eat the plant.

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So they develop specialized enzymes and behaviors

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and life history adaptations

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that minimize their exposure to these compounds.

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The Monarch, for example, is good at milkweeds,

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but it wouldn't be able to handle Oak trees,

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and that's why if you want to have caterpillars

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in your yard,

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you need to have the plants that create those caterpillars.

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They're not going to eat any other plants.

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Why would you want caterpillars in your yard?

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Well, if you want birds in your yard

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you got to have these Caterpillar.

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Chickadees, for example

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take 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars

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to make one clutch of chickadees.

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An insect apocalypse

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would devastate the animals

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that depend on them for food,

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including humans.

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We would lose at least a third of our crops,

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and our food web would collapse.

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If insects were to disappear,

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particularly our pollinators,

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it would hit certain aspects of our agriculture very hard.

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The production of fruits and vegetables,

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apples, for example, depend on bee pollination, tomatoes.

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Most of the fruits are being pollinated.

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So matter of fact, in China,

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where they have lost a lot of their pollinators,

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they've got guys up on ladders

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with paintbrushes trying to pollinate peaches

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and other crops that you know-

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It's possible, but boy,

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it is sure easier to keep the pollinators around.

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The real reason we can't lose our pollinators

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is because they're pollinating 80% of all plants,

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and 90% of all flowering plants.

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If we lost our pollinators,

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we would lose 80 to 90% of the plants on the planet,

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that is not an option.

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So we need pollinators every place we need plants,

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which is every place.

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Anybody who's managing land anywhere,

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in your yard, your corporate landscape,

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00:13:37,740 --> 00:13:39,330
your roadside,

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they need to be making pollinators,

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absolutely everywhere.

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(suspenseful music)

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So the familiar issues

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of overdevelopment, pesticides

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00:13:56,590 --> 00:13:58,630
and our ever expanding population

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are to blame for the insect population decline.

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But what can we do about it?

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Tallamy points out that the national parks and preserves,

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while well-intentioned, only separate us from nature,

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and cannot do enough

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to foster the interconnectivity necessary

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for biodiversity and recovery.

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Meanwhile, across the United States and around the world,

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millions upon millions of acres of land

292
00:14:30,350 --> 00:14:33,290
are covered in lawn grass,

293
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a symbol of prosperity and social order,

294
00:14:36,610 --> 00:14:40,523
but otherwise an ecological wasteland.

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More than 80% of the United States

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is privately owned.

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Tallamy sees that this is where we must join together

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to create the solution.

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We must practice conservation right where we live,

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work and farm.

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Dr. Tallamy notes,

302
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:03,970
that more than 40 million acres of land

303
00:15:03,970 --> 00:15:05,480
East of the Mississippi,

304
00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:08,190
an area, the size of new England

305
00:15:08,190 --> 00:15:10,563
is dedicated to lawn space,

306
00:15:11,660 --> 00:15:14,250
and turf grass does essentially nothing

307
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to foster biodiversity.

308
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He proposes the concept of a home grown national park.

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Conservation has to happen everywhere,

310
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which means we've got to learn

311
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to share our human dominated spaces with nature.

312
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The easiest thing for a typical homeowner to do

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is think about reducing the lawn.

314
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We have over 40 million acres of land in the U.S,

315
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it's a dead space.

316
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So I recommend cutting the lawn in half,

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cut your area of lawn in half.

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If everybody did that,

319
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that would give us 20 million acres of land

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we could use in conservation.

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Replanting just half

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of our lawn space with native plants,

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especially flowering plants,

324
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will support the insects

325
00:16:00,060 --> 00:16:02,103
that support us and our food web.

326
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We need the native plants to feed native bugs,

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and even the odds for insect and human survival.

328
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If we do this,

329
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we will create ecological patches and corridors

330
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that would equal an area

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as large as all of our major national parks,

332
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Yellowstone, Yosemite, the grand Tetons,

333
00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:30,680
the grand Canyon, Denali, the great Smokies and so on.

334
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We will be part of the solution

335
00:16:35,270 --> 00:16:37,053
instead of part of the problem.

336
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We've got to think about plants

337
00:16:40,910 --> 00:16:42,610
as more than decoration,

338
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they do important things,

339
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and they've got to start performing

340
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those ecological roles in our landscapes.

341
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And if we choose the wrong plants,

342
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the ones that don't perform those roles,

343
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that creates local ecosystem collapse.

344
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And if everybody does it,

345
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then you get general ecosystem collapse,

346
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and there are big ramifications to that.

347
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It's the ecosystems on this planet

348
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that keep humans alive.

349
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They produce ecosystem services, you know,

350
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oxygen, clean water, all that stuff.

351
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That has to happen everywhere,

352
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not just in little parks and preserves.

353
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You can create a new national park,

354
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call it Homegrown national park.

355
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You know, 20 million acres

356
00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:23,243
is bigger than all of our major national parks combined.

357
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So you're going to choose those powerful plants,

358
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I call them Keystone plants,

359
00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:33,200
Oaks being the most important plant

360
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:35,003
you could put in your yard.

361
00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:39,830
Another thing that any landowners should consider:

362
00:17:39,830 --> 00:17:41,650
remove the invasive plants

363
00:17:41,650 --> 00:17:43,670
that you have planted ornamentally

364
00:17:43,670 --> 00:17:44,503
on your yard.

365
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These things have run a muck in our natural areas,

366
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and we end up with an understory

367
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of invasive ornamentals from Asia

368
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that aren't supporting our insects

369
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because our insects have not been here long enough

370
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to be able to come up

371
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with the adaptations needed

372
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to get around the chemical defenses

373
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that are in those plants from Asia.

374
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So it creates biological deserts,

375
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and the most responsible thing we can do

376
00:18:09,620 --> 00:18:11,360
is to make sure that our property

377
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doesn't have any of those invasive plants on it.

378
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Pollination is one

379
00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:17,670
of the most critical functions

380
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that insects perform,

381
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and to accomplish that

382
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they need to have good reasons to travel

383
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from place to place,

384
00:18:25,090 --> 00:18:26,840
and from yard to yard,

385
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:29,200
and across the country.

386
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:32,973
And they need to be on the job pretty much all year long.

387
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Plant what we call pollinator gardens,

388
00:18:35,900 --> 00:18:38,790
and it's simply a matter of adding flowering plants

389
00:18:38,790 --> 00:18:40,320
to your landscape.

390
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:43,990
Pollinators need forage all season long.

391
00:18:43,990 --> 00:18:45,230
There are native bees flying

392
00:18:45,230 --> 00:18:48,490
from March to November in new England.

393
00:18:48,490 --> 00:18:49,820
So in the rest of the country,

394
00:18:49,820 --> 00:18:52,083
they're around nearly all the time,

395
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which means we need blooming phases

396
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:55,923
as continuously as possible.

397
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What more can we do?

398
00:18:59,920 --> 00:19:02,150
Another very important thing we need to do though,

399
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is think about light pollution at night.

400
00:19:05,290 --> 00:19:06,710
We turn on our security lights,

401
00:19:06,710 --> 00:19:07,820
we have our porch lights on,

402
00:19:07,820 --> 00:19:09,540
everybody's got to have a light on.

403
00:19:09,540 --> 00:19:11,750
Those lights are killing insects all the time,

404
00:19:11,750 --> 00:19:12,787
and I understand people say,

405
00:19:12,787 --> 00:19:14,210
"I gotta have my security light on

406
00:19:14,210 --> 00:19:16,060
or the bad man will come."

407
00:19:16,060 --> 00:19:18,390
If you put a motion sensor on your security light,

408
00:19:18,390 --> 00:19:20,370
it only turns on when the bad man comes,

409
00:19:20,370 --> 00:19:21,840
and the first thing you realize

410
00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:23,790
is how often the bad man does not come.

411
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If we create this homegrown national park,

412
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we will bring nature essentially right to our living spaces.

413
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Won't be like going to Yosemite,

414
00:19:35,610 --> 00:19:37,510
it won't be like going to Yellowstone,

415
00:19:37,510 --> 00:19:39,400
you won't have bison,

416
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:41,610
but you will have a lot of those specialized

417
00:19:41,610 --> 00:19:44,003
natural interactions right in your yard,

418
00:19:44,910 --> 00:19:46,890
and it'll give you the opportunity

419
00:19:46,890 --> 00:19:49,930
to either create a personal relationship

420
00:19:49,930 --> 00:19:51,380
with nature for the first time

421
00:19:51,380 --> 00:19:53,050
or recreate one that you've lost

422
00:19:53,050 --> 00:19:55,250
that you might've had as a child.

423
00:19:55,250 --> 00:19:57,030
But particularly for our kids,

424
00:19:57,030 --> 00:19:59,070
so many of our kids have never had a chance

425
00:19:59,070 --> 00:20:00,754
to interact with nature at all.

426
00:20:00,754 --> 00:20:03,970
(upbeat music)

427
00:20:03,970 --> 00:20:06,480
If our kids can walk out their door

428
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:08,290
at their yard and get to establish

429
00:20:08,290 --> 00:20:11,070
a relationship with some part of the natural world,

430
00:20:11,070 --> 00:20:13,480
because it's right there in their yard.

431
00:20:13,480 --> 00:20:15,910
Our kids are the future stewards of our planet,

432
00:20:15,910 --> 00:20:17,550
and if they don't know what they're stewarding

433
00:20:17,550 --> 00:20:18,740
or that they have to steward,

434
00:20:18,740 --> 00:20:20,830
they're going to be lousy stewards.

435
00:20:20,830 --> 00:20:23,320
So this is an investment in our future,

436
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:25,070
it's an investment in our current health,

437
00:20:25,070 --> 00:20:26,960
there's all kinds of health benefits

438
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:30,060
to peaceful times in the natural world,

439
00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:31,720
and it will save the biodiversity

440
00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:33,293
that runs our ecosystems.

441
00:20:34,950 --> 00:20:39,820
So, is this a big ask of a basic property owner?

442
00:20:39,820 --> 00:20:40,780
And where's the proof

443
00:20:40,780 --> 00:20:42,280
that this is worth the effort?

444
00:20:43,938 --> 00:20:47,500
Tallemy's experience with his own 10 acre place,

445
00:20:47,500 --> 00:20:51,500
just 15 miles from his office and university classrooms

446
00:20:51,500 --> 00:20:52,410
has turned out

447
00:20:52,410 --> 00:20:55,783
to be an ideal suburban ecological experiment.

448
00:20:56,820 --> 00:21:00,210
He replaced the invasive plants with native species,

449
00:21:00,210 --> 00:21:02,970
and so far he's counted and photographed

450
00:21:02,970 --> 00:21:06,910
more than a thousand species of moths.

451
00:21:06,910 --> 00:21:09,240
It's an indication of what a person

452
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:12,370
with minimal expense and experience can do

453
00:21:13,260 --> 00:21:16,323
to be part of an ecological recovery.

454
00:21:19,930 --> 00:21:21,050
My wife and I bought a farm

455
00:21:21,050 --> 00:21:24,130
that had been broken up in Southeast Pennsylvania

456
00:21:24,130 --> 00:21:25,020
with 10 acres,

457
00:21:25,020 --> 00:21:26,340
but it had been mowed for hay.

458
00:21:26,340 --> 00:21:30,120
I mean, there was not much there when we moved in,

459
00:21:30,120 --> 00:21:31,940
and actually they had stopped mowing us for hay,

460
00:21:31,940 --> 00:21:33,960
and what was there were all the invasive species

461
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:34,793
from Asia.

462
00:21:37,090 --> 00:21:38,790
So our goal was to remove them

463
00:21:38,790 --> 00:21:40,960
and put in native plants,

464
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:42,100
and in the meantime,

465
00:21:42,100 --> 00:21:45,240
I started to realize how important all of this was.

466
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:46,580
About four years ago,

467
00:21:46,580 --> 00:21:49,230
I had noticed so many moth species at our house

468
00:21:49,230 --> 00:21:51,800
that I made it a goal to start photographing

469
00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:53,170
as many as I could.

470
00:21:53,170 --> 00:21:54,910
That would be my photographic record

471
00:21:54,910 --> 00:21:57,700
of the number of species at our house.

472
00:21:57,700 --> 00:22:01,943
I am up to 1,013 species of moths at our house.

473
00:22:04,570 --> 00:22:05,730
The greatest benefit

474
00:22:05,730 --> 00:22:08,760
of the homegrown national park concept

475
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,220
is that it will provide ecological corridors

476
00:22:11,220 --> 00:22:14,820
for insects to use, to connect and thrive,

477
00:22:14,820 --> 00:22:17,583
which will allow us to do the same.

478
00:22:18,690 --> 00:22:21,890
Well, we've also recorded 59 species

479
00:22:21,890 --> 00:22:25,400
of terrestrial birds that bred at our house.

480
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:28,910
That's 38% of all the terrestrial birds in Pennsylvania

481
00:22:28,910 --> 00:22:30,900
on just 10 acres,

482
00:22:30,900 --> 00:22:31,733
which simply says,

483
00:22:31,733 --> 00:22:33,350
if you put the plants

484
00:22:33,350 --> 00:22:36,490
that support our wildlife back into our spaces,

485
00:22:36,490 --> 00:22:37,720
the wildlife will come.

486
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,260
It's not going to come after they're extinct,

487
00:22:40,260 --> 00:22:42,523
so we we've got to do it soon.

488
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,860
World Wildlife Fund two weeks ago said,

489
00:22:47,860 --> 00:22:48,830
well, we've lost two thirds

490
00:22:48,830 --> 00:22:52,490
of the wildlife on planet earth since 1970,

491
00:22:52,490 --> 00:22:54,280
and I'm thinking, "Not at my house."

492
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,230
We've gained at least two-thirds,

493
00:22:56,230 --> 00:22:58,630
I'm sure we've increased biodiversity by more than that,

494
00:22:58,630 --> 00:23:00,600
simply by putting the plants back.

495
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:02,833
So the message there is it's reversible.

496
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:05,000
This is not impossible,

497
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,190
it is a very gloomy statistic,

498
00:23:07,190 --> 00:23:10,250
but if everybody made it a goal to recreate life

499
00:23:10,250 --> 00:23:11,553
where they live,

500
00:23:12,500 --> 00:23:14,660
85% of the U.S is privately owned,

501
00:23:14,660 --> 00:23:16,900
or at least East of the Mississippi.

502
00:23:16,900 --> 00:23:18,772
We'd be 85% done.

503
00:23:18,772 --> 00:23:21,355
(upbeat music)