{"id":3338,"date":"2024-10-10T15:28:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T14:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3338"},"modified":"2024-10-18T10:30:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:30:02","slug":"culture-and-nature-2-missing-the-garden-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3338","title":{"rendered":"Culture and Nature – 2 – Missing The Garden Opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Section 2\u00a0 – Missing The Garden Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n

download as pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhere Have All The Insects Gone?\u201d \u2013 2024\u2019s Silent Spring<\/em><\/p>\n

An incidental demonstration of both the potential of nature ability and its present disconnect from political machinery, occurred in Spring this year, when people in the UK noticed a marked absence of insects, especially bees.<\/p>\n

Populations of many insects are notoriously volatile and affected by weather at any timescale but by May 2024 it was clear there were far fewer butterflies and Bumble Bees than usual in our own Norfolk garden.\u00a0 Then we visited the Knepp rewilding project in Sussex and found much the same thing.\u00a0 We met a fellow Knepp visitor who turned out to be a botanical surveyor from North Wales.\u00a0 She told us she\u2019d enjoyed hearing the nearby Nightingales but had \u201cexpected more abundance\u201d.\u00a0 I remember saying vague, and to my regret, slightly dismissive things about availability of blossom and insect broods but as we walked on, I had to admit to myself that she was right.\u00a0\u00a0 I too was disappointed that the UK\u2019s most famous re-wilding site seemed short on insects (and Swifts).<\/p>\n

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On May 10 we walked round this orchard at Knepp and saw just one Bumble Bee, despite all the apple blossom. <\/em><\/p>\n

In Hampshire on 22 May Melanie Oxley of PeCAN (see section on Nature Events) wrote<\/a> in the Petersfield Climate Action Network blog:<\/p>\n

\u2018A few days ago I led a small group of children armed with insect nets, into a meadow area in the countryside. It was a very warm spring day. In 45 minutes we had caught just two insects, a seven-spot ladybird and a small white butterfly.\u00a0 Just one pollinator! There was the nature emergency staring us in the face. The children were disappointed and I was heartbroken\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cJust one pollinator!\u00a0 There was the nature emergency staring us in the face\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

Back in Norfolk on 25 May as I assembled a demonstration \u2018Bug Hotel\u2019 for the \u2018Queen\u2019s Garden\u2019 at the Fairy Fair<\/a> (26 -7 May) at Bradmoor Woods, it was obvious that there were almost no flying insects about.\u00a0 In previous years on the same dates, we\u2019d been worried about wild bees moving in before we\u2019d have to dismantle and take it away, at the end of the Fair.\u00a0 We had no such problem in 2024, though the display of wildflowers in pots had few visiting insects to show visiting families.<\/p>\n

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Also on 25 May, over in Bantry, County Cork in Ireland, Michele Hallahan posted \u201calarming absence of insects is starkly noticeable this year.\u00a0 Birds are starving as a result\u201d.<\/p>\n

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On June 9 Lyn Lambert tweeted from Blashford Lakes in Hampshire:\u00a0 \u201cinsects were worryingly almost missing\u201d, and on June 14 near Newcastle Upon Tyne, John McCarthy wrote: \u201cMy walk this afternoon … Bright and warm, slight breeze. But something was missing! INSECTS. There are no bees and hardly any insects … Rachel Carson #SilentSpring\u201d.<\/p>\n

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On June 22, day of the Restore Nature Now march, @SophieAmandaH tweeted about an absence of larger Hawk Moths in her light trap.<\/p>\n

It was Insect Week<\/a> organised by the Royal Entomological Society from 23-29th<\/sup> June.\u00a0 Some people reported lots of insects, many more, very few.\u00a0 It varied a lot from place to place and across species groups.\u00a0 From Northern Ireland, meadow-restorer Donna Rainey, @donnarainey4 welcomed an uptick of insects after \u201ca real absence of invertebrates locally for a few weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n

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On June 30 this post from Natasha Walter in London produced a string of over 400 replies from all over the UK.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One thing that struck me was the number who had put their faith in wildlife gardening and local rewilding, seen it produce results, and were now in need of hope, reassurance and guidance.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat to do about it seems unanswerable\u201d said one, and another: \u201cI already have an established wildlife garden, usually buzzing with bees and grasshoppers but nothing this year.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also rewilded other areas.\u00a0 What can we do now?!\u201d<\/p>\n

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The following day, Sussex University scientist and naturalist Dave Goulson posted his thoughts in the shape of a video on Youtube, Where have all the insects gone<\/em><\/a>? (58k views).<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media in the last few days has been going absolutely berserk about<\/em>insects having disappeared about the lack of bees in particular in people’s <\/em>gardens a few a few people disagreeing saying they’ve got plenty but most <\/em>people saying they’re they’re really worried because they’re they’re not <\/em>seeing any bees, [and] some say they used to a week or two ago they had bees and they all disappeared … and it seems to be widespread panic that we’re suffering from a very sharp kind of insect apocalypse, so I thought you might be interested in in my take …\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Goulson delivered a \u201cdon\u2019t panic\u201d message about the near-term absence of insects related to a \u201cmild really wet winter followed by a really cold and wet spring\u201d affecting both insects and the plants they rely on, followed up with \u201cit’s worse than you think and we should be panicking\u201d about the long-term trends (he guessed 90-95% of insects had been lost over 100 years) and drivers of decline like pesticides and climate change.<\/p>\n

The difficulty with this, which long bedevilled climate change communications, is that humans are hardwired to respond to short-term threats, so there is no better time to respond to a gradual long-term change than when it\u2019s acutely manifest in the short- term.\u00a0\u00a0 Nature groups need to work out how to do this, or else the shifting-baseline effect will mean the opportune moments to raise the alarm are never seized.<\/p>\n

As with climate attribution, where thanks to the work of Friedi Otto and colleagues we now have<\/a> near real-term attribution of climate change to real weather events, the \u2018biodiversity\u2019 community needs to be able to relate things people notice and are concerned about, to probable causes, while the relevant events are ongoing and the critical context (see CAMPCAT<\/a>) validates the message.<\/p>\n

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As it was, the highly motivated engagement with the UK\u2019s \u2018Silent Spring\u2019, which verged on the cusp of despair, drew a slow and strangely tepid response from established conservation organisations.<\/p>\n

I am pretty sure because they\u2019d also noticed but didn\u2019t know what to say.\u00a0 The UK\u2019s mini \u2018Silent Spring\u2019 preceded and followed the June 22 Restore Nature Now<\/em> march and yet it didn\u2019t seem to feature at that event, although I may have missed it.<\/p>\n

Insect week and the \u2018missing insects\u2019 were discussed on BBC Radio\u2019s Today Programme<\/em> on 24 June, and on July 19, Tony Juniper, Chairman of Natural England, wrote a personal Opinion piece in The Guardian <\/em>Where are all the butterflies this summer? Their absence is telling us something important<\/a> which reiterated Goulson\u2019s emphasis on the longer term drivers.<\/p>\n

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Scientists and nature groups have some long-running structured surveys which try to measure the ups and downs of insects in a standardised way, to avoid relying on \u2018anecdotal\u2019 reports from Twitter or elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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In an August article also called Where Have All The Insects Gone<\/a>?, Manuela Saragosa explored the world of insect-counting for the Financial Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She mentioned Britain\u2019s Hoverfly Recording Scheme (Hoverflies are important and endangered pollinators and the UK Hoverflies Facebook Group has nearly 7,000 members) run since at least 1991, and the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, which has been going since 1976 (and has a sister more popular app-based Big Garden Butterfly Count<\/a> 18 July \u2013 10 August,\u00a0 with 135,000 counts in 2023), along with the Rothamsted Insect Survey which as been using light and vacuum traps since 1964.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s data from such surveys which proves that the UK\u2019s insects have massively declined.\u00a0\u00a0 But like most science, such surveys are run and analysed slowly and carefully.\u00a0 On 29 July Butterfly Conservation, organisers of the Big Garden \u2018Count did give a mid-survey update<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018… very low numbers of butterflies have been spotted so far in their annual Big Butterfly Count. On average participants are seeing just over half the number of butterflies they were spotting this time last year.\u00a0 The unusually wet and windy spring, coupled with the colder than usual temperatures so far this summer could be contributing to the lack of butterflies. While there is a chance of a later emergence of the insects if there is a prolonged sunny spell, numbers are currently the lowest recorded in the 14-year history of Butterfly Conservation\u2019s Big Butterfly Count\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

[In October I was at a nature reserve with a summer population of Nightjars, birds which feed on night-flying insects.\u00a0 I was told that scientists studying the birds had found they were badly underweight due to lack of food during the late May \u2013 early August breeding season and had probably not reared few if any any young.]<\/p>\n

Opportunity Missed<\/strong><\/p>\n

But by August and September many nature oriented Twitter users were reporting slightly larger numbers of bees and butterflies.\u00a0 It was, now, in communications parlance, a \u2018falling\u2019 rather than a \u2018rising\u2019 issue.\u00a0 Engaging a potentially huge audience catalysed by those with the natural history ability, the time, the motivation and the stories \u2013 about the nature gardens and places they had lovingly created \u2013 was an opportunity missed.<\/p>\n

2024\u2019s Big Garden Butterfly Count results were published on 18 September.\u00a0 They were confirmed as the lowest ever in the Count\u2019s 14 year history.\u00a0 Butterfly Conservation called it a Butterfly Emergency<\/a> and Tony Juniper said it was a \u201cwarning<\/a>\u201d of what lay ahead but the findings were no longer so salient.\u00a0 It was autumn.\u00a0\u00a0 The surge of concern driven by the unexpected stillness and silence of flower-filled gardens and hedgerows at the crest of spring and the height of summer was long gone.<\/p>\n

People who are active custodians of nature in their gardens on a daily basis, are a growing cultural phenomenon.\u00a0 They use social media on a short communication cycle.\u00a0 There will be more opportunities for that to reach out to MPs, government, Councillors and Councils but not at the pace of formalised science, citizen-science or otherwise.<\/p>\n

To embed this locally-rooted contemporary nature awareness in political consciousness, will require a more agile way to engage politicians while the public is actively engaged by real events.\u00a0 In strategy jargon it needs a tighter OODA<\/a>loop. While the 2024 Silent Spring surge existed, it had nothing to connect it to politics, not even on July 4, General Election Day.<\/p>\n

My Twitter \u2018nature sentries\u2019 are not typical of the general population: many of them have devoted large amounts of time, effort and money to maximising the suitability of their homes and gardens to support wildlife.\u00a0 Used to sharing examples of bees and other insects visiting their gardens, and in some cases able to identify a lot of insects and plants including wildflowers,\u00a0 they are very \u2018tuned in\u2019 to nature and likely to notice unusual absences or changes.\u00a0\u00a0 But they are just the tip of a gardening culture which is increasingly pro-nature.\u00a0 They are potential \u2018mavens<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018connectors\u2019 who could be used to engage friends, relatives and neighbours \u2013 if they engaged at the opportune moment.<\/p>\n

Nature\u2019s Changing Place In Gardening Culture <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNorwich is said by fame to be a City in a Wood, or a Wood in a City\u2019 some calls it a Grove in a City, or a City in a Grove; and others say, it is a Garden in a City, or a City in a Garden.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The Records of Norwich 1736<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>[thanks to Patrick Barkham for tracking down this quote when I couldn\u2019t find it]<\/p>\n

\u2018A nature-literate Britain must become a widely shared political objective. To achieve such political backing, nature ability and quality must become aspirational, for example by being attached to popular past-times like gardening, and being seen as a desirable feature in gardens and homes\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n

Why Our Children Are Not Being Connected With Nature<\/em><\/a>, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

Gardening is a major part of UK culture because of what we do, not because there are a lot of gardening books, university degrees in it, or gardening museums.\u00a0 We spend a lot of time and money on, and in our 16 million gardens. \u00a0More of us are now including nature in our plans.<\/p>\n

According to<\/a> the UK\u2019s HTA (Horticultural Trades Association), UK households collectively spent around \u00a38 billion on retail garden products in 2023, much of it from about 1400 garden centres and retail nurseries. 91%\u00a0 believe gardens and green spaces benefit the environment and wildlife and 51% say they use their garden to feed, watch or encourage wildlife.<\/p>\n

78%\u00a0of British adults (about 43m people) have access to a private garden.\u00a0 62%\u00a0 use them to grow plants, trees and flowers. 34%\u00a0 grow some herbs, fruit and vegetables. 84%\u00a0of British adults believe gardens and green spaces benefit their state of mind, and 79%\u00a0 their physical health.<\/p>\n

The average UK garden is 16m x 16m or 256m2<\/sup>, excluding window boxes and balconies, and the combined area of the UK’s domestic gardens is roughly the same as Somerset \u2013 with obvious potential to both increase living space for native flora and fauna, and increase nature ability, such as recognizing and understanding wild plants.<\/p>\n

For instance the Fairyland Trust has been running \u2018Fairy Gardens\u2019 Workshops<\/a> (children take away coir pots with plug plant of native wildflowers to plant at home) and campaigns about planting wildflowers in gardens, since the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Wildflower plug plants in \u2018<\/em>Fairy Gardens\u2019<\/em><\/a> at a Fairy Fair, and wildflowers established from a \u2018Fairy Garden\u2019 planted into the ground in a garden (Greater Stitchwort, Wild Strawberry and Red Campion). <\/em><\/p>\n

The Trust worked out<\/a> that if all 16m gardens grew a square metre of Dandelions at the density found in one garden in Norfolk, that could support 1.7m extra colonies of Bumble Bees. While if all gardens included a four square metre patch of wildflowers, it would add an area<\/a> equivalent to half of all the remaining natural flower rich meadows in the country.<\/p>\n

Birds are already part of garden culture in a way that wildflowers are not just yet.\u00a0 The BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) says we spend \u00a32-300m on wild bird seed every year.\u00a0 A 2012 study<\/a>\u00a0 found a majority of households feed birds (64% across rural and urban areas in England, and 53% within five British study cities, fed garden birds. That is about 18m households feeding birds in their garden, considerably more people than even the most optimistic estimate of the membership of environment groups.\u00a0 Another investigation<\/a> found that over 40 years, such feeding has affected the fortunes of national bird populations, with those using garden feeders going up, compared to those that don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Horticulture Magazine\u2019s website has reported<\/a> that there \u2018has been a conscious move towards organic and eco-friendly products, with\u00a046% of gardeners\u00a0using organic fertilisers instead of those filled with chemicals\u2019, and\u00a0 87% wanted to bring more wildlife to their gardens by feeding them or providing shelter.\u00a0 It also found 37% thought wildlife was the best part about owning a garden, <\/strong>\u2018rating it ahead of growing their own plants or vegetables\u2019.\u00a0 This is a real change from attitudes prevalent in the 1990s when research for early Plantlife<\/a> campaigns found that even many people who were pro-nature baulked at the idea of wild-flowers in gardens, as \u2018wild\u2019 implied a loss of control.<\/p>\n

The Wyevale report found that\u00a046% of gardeners were consciously selecting organic fertilisers\u00a0\u2018rather than those which contain potentially harmful chemicals\u2019.\u00a0 Slug pellets, previously their top selling slug product \u2018were not even in the top 3, with an organic alternative now clinching the top spot\u2019.<\/p>\n

In 2016 1 in 5 reported they were changing their gardens by reducing the size of lawns in favour of other features.\u00a0 These trends suggest that it might not be that difficult to encourage people to make further changes to help nature, especially discrete features each with their own logic, such as:<\/p>\n