Optimistic on behalf of the insects because people care about them: – A dramatic change to the positive

– There are new reports all the time, says Erik Tunstad, biologist, research journalist and author, soberly.

According to Tunstad, the problem with the reports is that there are no reliable figures from before modern times, only anecdotes and assumptions. Thus, one does not know, but assumes.

It is nevertheless frightening enough according to the four words he opens the book “To love an insect” with:

– There will be fewer insects.

Goes with a bang

And then we’re off to drive. For Tunstad, biodiversity is much more important than climate issues and most other things – “without it we are unfortunately dead”.

“If we lose biodiversity, ecological upheaval and starvation await – admittedly in the long term.”

In the book, he writes that it is probably the first time in 250 million years that the insects go with a bang. Stocks are being reduced, sometimes dramatically, and increasingly rapidly. The insects are dying out eight times faster than mammals and birds, in extreme cases the populations are reduced by as much as 2.5 percent annually.

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– The turning point is probably around the Second World War – with agricultural methods and increased use of poison, together with the number of people, says Tunstad to NTB.

– There is hope

Nevertheless, the image he conjures up in the non-fiction book with the subtitle “What happens when the insects disappear?” is partly optimistic. The reason is simply that most people have started to care more about the fate of insects.

– I would say that there has been a dramatic change to the positive. That’s why I’m a bit of an optimist. People actually care about insects today, says Tunstad.

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When he wrote about the threat to the insects in a research journal in the 1980s, his colleagues laughed. Then scientific articles about the threats to the insects began to come in full force from the 2000s.

Today, according to Tunstad, writing about the same thing attracts a lot of positive attention. He already notices a lot of attention around the release of “To love an insect” – more than when he has written books on other topics.

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– That people are becoming interested is a good sign. It gives me hope.

Democratic insects

Saving the insects will require efforts on several levels. It will require political decisions and international agreements, but Tunstad believes it is not impossible to do something for the insects as well as for the individual.

It is thus easier than saving the climate: It is spraying less, and thinking more before we cut down trees and build new housing areas and roads. Simply be more careful with nature.

– Don’t mow the lawn, leave twigs and brush in the corners of the garden and preferably build a garden pond, is Erik Tunstad’s advice to those who want to help the insects. Here in its own lush wilderness. Photo: Private / Handout / NTB

Almost every Norwegian garden has an insect hotel, and the call to leave the lawn mowing alone has become a sign of spring.

– You save insects by simply letting the lawn grow, leaving twigs and brooms in the corners of the garden, perhaps digging a garden pond. The democratic thing about insects is that everyone can enjoy them – if you only have a veranda box, says Tunstad and points out that insects can live close to people.

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There are more insect species in villa gardens near Oslo than where he himself lives in the country on Tjøme – simply because it is not sprayed near the city gardens.

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Two types of love of nature

Tunstad started his “insect career” by studying the insect population in sprayed versus unsprayed apple orchards in Asker in his main thesis at the university. That is to say: He had a “craving for small insects” since he was a boy.

– I have always thought that there are two types of love of nature. One likes the details, digging in the soil like a Cinderella, sitting down and listening for the little things. The others walk 15 miles to see a mountain peak.

He has had the idea for the book for a few years. Originally the plan was to write about the rainforest and the insects there, until he realized that he might as well write about his own garden.

Fewer pet insects

– It is only now in our time that we take care of nature. The first time nature conservation was mentioned in literature was in 1801. The word “ecology” was coined in the middle of the 19th century. Now the trip has finally come to the insects, after we have worried about forest death, the ozone layer and climate, says Erik Tunstad.

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Which, in short, don’t think the bugs are going away. But that there will be fewer of them, and that there will be changes in which species groups will dominate.

– There will be fewer insect groups associated with the old European agricultural landscape – “pet insects” such as butterflies, beetles and solitary bees, concludes Erik Tunstad.

Tunstad on the fear of bee death: – Exaggerated

In 2006, warnings about Colony Collapse Disorder, the so-called bee death, came out – and spread far into popular culture with novels such as Maja Lunde’s “History of the Bees”.

Tunstad is keen to keep his composure and a healthy skepticism and couldn’t help but poke a little at the fear of bee death in the book.

– Actually, it’s a disc boom, because the tambi are not threatened. There will be more of them, and they are harmful to other insects – where they outcompete wild bees, of which there are over 200 species in Norway alone, says the biologist and author of “To love an insect”.