The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World By Oliver Milman, pub. W.W. Norton & Co If the downside to a world without bugs could be summed up in an image, it might be a picture of Sichuan’s orchard workers behaving like bees. High on ladders or clinging to branches, farm workers in one of China’s premier apple- and pear-growing regions use long wands with feathery ends to dab pollen from a can into one fruit tree blossom after another. Years ago, the bees that once did the job were all but wiped out by pesticide use and vanishing habitat. Now, legions of workers – improbable bee substitutes – work flower by flower, tree by tree, to pollinate the region’s fruit crop. “It’s incredibly striking,” says Oliver Milman, “and obviously ominous for the future.” Milman is a United States-based environment reporter for Britain’s The Guardian newspaper and the author of The Insect Crisis , a stark and startling new book about the drastic recent declines around the world of the crawling, buzzing, sometimes-biting beasts that many of us call “bugs”. The charm of dung beetles and of butterflies, and why insects matter It is a calamity with consequences for all life on Earth – including our own – and although it’s taking place right in front of our noses, most of us have no idea. “Insects always seem like they’re everywhere,” explains Milman. “There’s so many of them – to the point that we consider them irritating […] and the idea that they could become rare or anything like that seems so far-fetched that most of us don’t really consider it.” Milman had little idea either, until the first big scientific paper on the insect crisis appeared five years ago. The surprise was unsettling for someone long-attuned to the tiny, fascinating creatures. Growing up in Bedfordshire, in southeastern England, Milman remembers hours spent in his back garden, rolling logs and stones while hunting for ants and other insects. From the beauty of butterflies to the social complexity of wasps, Milman soon understood that life’s greatest variety often inhabits the smallest corners; more than three-quarters of all known animals, after all, belong to the insect class. Nevertheless, the 2017 research paper came as a shock when it revealed that Germany’s flying insects were dropping, literally, like flies. Scientists trapping insects in the same way for 27 years determined that the quantity of the creatures – measured as combined weight – had fallen by more that 75 per cent over the period. Other studies followed. A review published in 2019 found that 40 per cent of insect species are declining around the world. A third of them are endangered, and the rate of extinction for the group is eight times faster than that of mammals and birds – animals known to be vanishing up to a thousand times quicker than normal. “It became clear when you looked at the research in aggregate that there’s a real problem here, and we still don’t know the full picture,” says Milman. “Just in the last few decades, we’ve seen pretty much total wipeouts of insects in certain parts of the world.” The research attracted attention. The New York Times warned of “insect Armageddon”. The implications were not simply to do with the loss of billions of insects – a prospect that might sound even a little attractive to those who find them noisome – but also with their vital place in Earth’s web of life. Maybe we shouldn’t be pushing nature so far away Oliver Milman, author of The Insect Crisis Insects are critical to ecological processes – as food for birds and other animals, as pollinators for about 80 per cent of flowering plants, as decomposers and nutrient recyclers – that keep the world going. The orchards in Sichuan are just one example. Insect pollinators, including bees, flies, butterflies and others, have a role in the production of more than three-quarters of leading food crops around the planet. Some estimates value the work they do at between US$235 billion and US$577 billion. Without them, farmers resort to desperate measures – such as hand-pollinating fruit trees – just to keep the food system from collapsing. “Having to go out into the fields and hand pollinate, that’s not sustainable going forward,” says Milman, incredulously. “But I think it points to the potential food security issues that China and other countries will face if pollinators continue to decline.” Food security is just the tip of the iceberg. As Milman’s book makes plain, the dizzying variety and sheer numbers of insects are essential in countless ways we take for granted. Medical compounds – such as antibacterial thanatin from the spined soldier bug – are derived from them. Their form and function unlock scientific and engineering secrets – such as cockroaches and lightning bugs used as models for machines or chemical glow sticks. Importantly, fewer insects means fewer birds, fish and other animals that depend on them. For instance, of the three billion birds that have disappeared from North American bird populations in the past 50 years (more than a third of the total population), 90 per cent relied on insects for food. Pesticides – especially the popular-but-toxic group known as neonicotinoids – are chief among the culprits behind the insect die-offs, explains Milman. But climate change, water pollution, industrial farming practices and even manicured lawns exact a grim toll. Reducing these monumental threats is no mean feat, he says, but an awareness of the problem is a good place to start. So is a change in attitude that sees insects not as pests but as harbingers of thriving, hopeful nature. “If you go to a place that’s full of insects, it’s really a kind of humming, thrumming, vibrant place,” says Milman. “They’re all around you, around your legs, in your face. “That’s how it was, and maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe we shouldn’t be pushing nature so far away. “I wanted to make people think about the importance of what we still have and can retain – from a selfish point of view in terms of food pollination, medicines, the functioning of our ecosystems, and the way nutrients are cycled, but also just a sense of beauty as well. “I think of butterflies, and in many respects, they’re ecologically pointless because nothing would die out if butterflies were to depart the Earth. But we would lose so much just from a cultural point of view, one of the most beautiful creatures. “So, it’s not just that they do things for us, it’s that they are in themselves worthy of our awe and respect and, I think, of our care.”