International scientists formulate a roadmap for insect conservation and recovery
Harvey et al., 2020.
To the Editor — A
growing number of studies are providing evidence that a suite of
anthropogenic stressors — habitat loss and fragmentation, pollution,
invasive species, climate change and overharvesting — are seriously
reducing insect and other invertebrate abundance, diversity and biomass
across the biosphere1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.
These declines affect all functional groups: herbivores, detritivores,
parasitoids, predators and pollinators. Insects are vitally important in
a wide range of ecosystem services9 of which some are vitally important for food production and security (for example, pollination and pest control)10.
There is now a strong scientific consensus that the decline of insects,
other arthropods and biodiversity as a whole, is a very real and
serious threat that society must urgently address11,12,13.
In response to the increasing public awareness of the problem, the
German government is committing funds to combat and reverse declining
insect numbers13.
This funding should act as a clarion call to other nations across the
world — especially wealthier ones — to follow suit and to respond
proactively to the crisis by addressing the known and suspected threats
and implementing solutions.
We hereby propose a global ‘roadmap’ for insect conservation and recovery (Fig. 1). This entails the immediate implementation of several ‘no-regret’ measures (Fig. 1,
step 1) that will act to slow or stop insect declines. Among the
initiatives we encourage are the following immediate measures:
Taking aggressive steps to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions; reversing recent trends in agricultural
intensification including reduced application of synthetic pesticides
and fertilizers and pursuing their replacement with agro-ecological
measures; promoting the diversification and maintenance of locally
adapted land-use techniques; increasing landscape heterogeneity through
the maintenance of natural areas within the landscape matrix and
ensuring the retention and creation of microhabitats within habitats
which may be increasingly important for insects during extreme climatic
events such as droughts or heatwaves; reducing identified local threats
such as light, water or noise pollution, invasive species and so on;
prioritizing the import of goods that are not produced at the cost of
healthy, species-rich ecosystems; designing and deploying policies (for
example, subsidies and taxation) to induce the innovation and adoption
of insect-friendly technologies; enforcing stricter measures to reduce
the introduction of alien species, and prioritizing nature-based tactics
for their (long-term) mitigation; compiling and implementing
conservation strategies for species that are vulnerable, threatened or
endangered; funding educational and outreach programs, including those
tailored to the needs of the wider public, farmers, land managers,
decision makers and conservation professionals; enhancing ‘citizen
science’ or ‘community science’ as a way of obtaining more data on
insect diversity and abundance as well as engaging the public,
especially in areas where academic or professional infrastructure is
lacking; devising and deploying measures across agricultural and food
value chains that favour insect-friendly farming, including tracking,
labelling, certification and insurance schemes or outcome-based
incentives that facilitate behavioural changes, and investing in
capacity building to create a new generation of insect conservationists
and providing knowledge and skills to existing professionals
(particularly in developing countries).
To better understand changes in insect abundance and diversity, research should aim to prioritize the following areas:
Quantifying
temporal trends in insect abundance, diversity and biomass by
extracting long-term datasets from existing insect collections to inform
new censuses; exploring the relative contributions of different
anthropogenic stressors causing insect declines within and across
different taxa; initiating long-term studies comparing insect abundance
and diversity in different habitats and ecosystems along a
management-intensity gradient and at the intersection of agricultural
and natural habitats; designing and validating insect-friendly
techniques that are effective, locally relevant and economically sound
in agriculture, managed habitats and urban environments; promoting and
applying standardized monitoring protocols globally and establishing
long-term monitoring plots or sites based on such protocols, as well as
increasing support for existing monitoring efforts; establishing an
international governing body under the auspices of existing bodies (for
example, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)) that is
accountable for documenting and monitoring the effects of proposed
solutions on insect biodiversity in the longer term; launching
public–private partnerships and sustainable financing initiatives with
the aim of restoring, protecting and creating new vital insect habitats
as well as managing key threats; increasing exploration and research to
improve biodiversity assessments, with a focus on regional capacity
building in understudied and neglected areas, and performing large-scale
assessments of the conservation status of insect groups to help define
priority species, areas and issues.
Most
importantly, we should not wait to act until we have addressed every
key knowledge gap. We currently have enough information on some key
causes of insect decline to formulate no-regret solutions whilst more
data are compiled for lesser-known taxa and regions and long-term data
are aggregated and assessed. Implementation should be accompanied by
research that examines impacts, the results of which can be used to
modify and improve the implementation of effective measures.
Furthermore, such a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach ensures that these
conservation strategies are robust to newly emerging pressures and
threats. We must act now.
https://go.nature.com/35tqnEc
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