Has nature lost the war…?

Grim.

Ours is the most nature-depleted country in Europe. We’ve lost 98% of our meadows. What scraps of land that remain for nature are so fragmented that populations no longer connect.

Pesticides now being used in the UK are more toxic than ever and more toxic than allowed to be used in the EU. Ten thousand times more toxic than DDT.

Climate change is leading to both wetter weather but also a hotter world. The extreme heat of 2019 was devastating for

many invertebrates. Their populations were still recovering when the wet and cool spring of 2024 hit.

Nature is paying the price.

Professor Dave Goulson reminds us that we have been losing 1-2% of our invertebrates each year since WWII. In eighty years that adds up to a staggering loss.

Butterfly Conservation tell us that 2024 is the worst on record for butterflies.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust report the worst-ever year for bumblebees.

The writer Kate Bradbury has found a high proportion of hedgehogs are suffering from malnutrition. We’ve had one record of a hedgehog here this year.

And in the face of this our government chooses to

spend a staggering £22 billion on a carbon capture technology that at best has no proof of working and at worst will increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Man is at war with Nature. And if he wins he loses. Hubert Reeves

Then. Amongst the grim, our little granddaughter (4) is elected an eco councillor at her school. 

Perhaps there is hope.