Month: September 2022

"AGRICULTURAL POISONS. "Poisons for this, poisons for that. Kill off the insects. Kill off the snails. Kill off the wild flowers. Kill off anything that isn't your money-making crop with herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, molluscicides." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

INSECT IMPACT. "In the UK alone, scientists noted the areas inhabited by common insects such as beetles, butterflies, bees and wasps saw a 30-60% decline over the past forty years." Similar declines were found in larger animals. https://lnkd.in/euCx9Fn View in LinkedIn

ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZERS. "In 1909 the Haber-Bosch method to synthesize ammonium nitrate was first demonstrated. NPK fertilizers stimulated the first concerns about industrial agriculture, due to concerns that they came with serious side effects such as soil compaction, soil erosion and declines in overall soil fertility, along with health concerns about toxic chemicals entering the food supply." https://lnkd.in/eFrnZiK View in LinkedIn

HABITAT LOSS AND CLIMATE CHANGE. In the UK "Invertebrate numbers have decreased by 45% on average over a 35 year period in which the human population has doubled." The causes are habitat destruction and global climate disruption. https://lnkd.in/euCx9Fn View in LinkedIn

THE GREAT THINNING. "In Britain, national extinctions were not piling up like ravaged landscapes were. What was happening with wildlife was more subtle: it was a great thinning-out of all populations." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

LOCAL EXTINCTIONS. "The number of birds which have declined so much as to be locally extinct...1967-2011, the turtle dove declined in Britain by 95%, the grey partridge by 91%, the spotted flycatcher by 88%, the yellow wagtail by 73%...the tree sparrow by 95%; and so it goes on. In most of the country, they've simply vanished." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

NATIONAL VS LOCAL EXTINCTIONS. "During the whole of the twentieth century, there were about twelve national extinctions amount Britain's fifteen hundred or so native plants. But on a county-by county basis, 66-93 species of plants were gone entirely." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

DECLINES. "It is exactly the same story with butterflies. There have been only three national extinctions in the post-war years..but since the butterfly recording schemes first started, nearly three-quarters of our fifty-eight remaining species have declined and disappeared over much of the country" (52-79%). https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

LESS BIRDS AND BEES. "All across the land, they tumbled in numbers, the birds, the wild flowers, the butterflies, and it is clear that more than half of all Britain's wildlife, as it existed at the end of the Second World War, has now gone." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

STATE OF DECLINE. "The State of the UK's Birds report...shows that of the UK's 107 most widespread and common breeding birds, 16 species have declined by more than a third since 1995, including the willow tit, starling, cuckoo, lapwing and wood warbler." https://lnkd.in/eV5Cr3a View in LinkedIn