Where have all the insects gone? (Within my lifetime)

Statistics say, that the number of insects and other invertebrates which can be collected in central Europe is only one fifth of what it used to be in the 1990s, iin terms of biomass.

When I was a boy, there were way more insects and invertebrates around than today. At night thou­sands of flies and moths formed clouds around the street lights, and car drivers had to clean the windscreens from insects. The tiny animals have all gone now, there are no more butterflies except the yellow and white brimstone and cabbage butterflies, peacock butterflies and swallowtails have disappeared, and so have millipedes, slaters and earworms, also fireflies. The biomass of invertebrates that scientists collect is down 80% since 1990. What has happened? Our chemical industry gave farmers three powerful tools for killing: herbicides against some sorts of plants, they have killed of the blue cornflowers, red poppies and silver thistles which grew on construction sites and near and in corn fields when I was young. These drugs do not kill the crop or grass. When the flowers were gone, the insects had lost their food source. Farmers and chemical industry targeted animals and insects also directly with pesticides and insecticides, and the latest “Weapon of mass destruction” against nature are neonicotionoids, abbreviated as “neonics”, which are widely used since about 20 years, they are toxic for nerve cells, also for us humans. Fungizides against yeast and mushrooms complete the farmers arsenal. All this has damaged the immune system of bees, and they became easy prey for the varroa mite. Most animals which further up the food chain are gone now: In my childhood there were thousands of sparrows everywhere, now they are a rare sight. Bats are no longer there. Only those animals which eat human garbage thrive: rats and mice, crows and pidgeons and lizards along the Munich S-Bahn lines.

It is little known that farming is the worst polluter and destroyer of nature, industry only comes second. When I was born, Munich had one million inhabitants, now it has one and a half, and the area around Munich has twice as many people now who all need to be fed.

Like everywhere, invasive species bring native species to or near extinction, on example is the Rhein-Main-Donau-Kanal, which allowed fish, crabs, water insects and bacteria to swim from Danube into Main and Rhine and vice versa. Ships from all over the world empty their ballast tanks in the North Sea when the come to Rotterdam, Bermerhaven or Hamburg, and they bring in foreign mulluscs, algae, fish, shells etc.. These ships also wash their oil tanks in the open ocean, which is illegal, this brings tar balls to the sand beaches of the North Sea. Toxicologists have calculated that the average German takes up 25 grams of the very toxic mineral oil into his or her body in the course of a lifetime.

So what can we do? Well, at least three things: Eat vegetarian food, which needs much less farming space, raise awareness that sustainable agriculture is a must and give money to charities in poor countries which educate children, especially girls and which make birth control / contraceptives available, to curb population growth.