Insect Decline — It’s Going to be All Right

‘I can certainly do without mosquitoes’ – this is a common sentiment. Yet we humans are dependent on every insect, including mosquitoes. Even if an insect doesn’t play an important role in pollination and therefore in our food supply, it’s still an important source of food for other animals, such as birds and amphibians. Insects also ensure that dead plants and carrion are decomposed, thus maintaining the balance in nature. In short, without insects, there would be no life on earth. Nevertheless, three-quarters of the biomass of flying insects has disappeared in just 30 years. Researchers found the greatest decline in areas with intensive agricultural operations. But insects are dying out in forests, too. Insect biomass in forests decreased by 41 per cent between 2008 and 2017. In meadows, the decline was even greater – 67 per cent. We are in the midst of a global extinction on a scale similar to the last mass extinction sixty million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the earth.
There is still cause for hope!

Following the success of Queer – Diversity is in our Nature, the Natural History Museum of Bern is once again tackling a highly topical, socio-politically relevant subject with its new special exhibition Insect Decline – It’s Going to be All Right. The exhibition takes a surprising and provocatively optimistic approach by ushering visitors into the future, more precisely into the year 2053. From there, they look back at our present, and the numerous effective approaches and initiatives that have managed to avert the great insect extinction.