3.3.2024 On species protection - Day

From the perspective of Gut Aiderbichl

(written by Gisela Pschenitschnig)

Insects, the important miracle animals without which no life would be possible

Insects compost biological waste, without them there would be no harvest of fruit and vegetables. The buzzers that bother humans and die from fly swatters or poisons are millimeter-sized creatures. They are indispensable for life itself and for biodiversity on earth.

A silent catastrophe at a rapid pace - the mass extinction of insects

Over millions of years, no force of nature has managed to throw the natural balance off course and destroy it in the way that humans have.

Insects are food sources for spiders, reptiles, birds and mammals. They are the important wheel for the nutrient cycle in the soil and for the self-purification of domestic waters. Insects clear away carrion, compost biological waste and fight pests in agriculture. These tiny animals do great things to preserve life.

The pollination of plants by insects is the basis for the vital human food chain. The easiest way to understand the cycle is through the work of the bee: it flies for miles from one plant to the next, ensuring pollination. Without bees there would be no coffee beans, without bees there would be no fruit - if the bee were to die out, human life would also come to an end. There would be no more forests, no more oxygen ...

Destruction of the ecosystem - destruction of the livelihood of the world's population

Every animal and every plant has a function in the ecosystem given to it by nature. The extinction of species also poses a threat to humanity, as food and medicine are linked to a functioning ecosystem. A functioning ecosystem, in turn, needs biodiversity.

Vast natural habitats of animals and plants are being destroyed in order to extract resources. It is all about profit and luxury, and it is not uncommon to hear in this context that "there is enough of everything that humans need". Nature shows us in its own way just how naive this kind of thinking is: floods, drought, climate change.

Huge areas are being converted to agricultural land, forests are being cut down, cities are expanding and depriving wild animals of their habitat, and the spread of animals and plants is increasingly being prevented in order to maintain luxury for humanity: a development whose consequences are being downplayed too much.

Insects are the foundation for all life on earth

Why do we humans often wait for someone else to take responsibility away from us? Why do we wait for politics and laws to save our planet? In future, the fly swatter should stay in the drawer when we learn how important flies are. In future, I won't kill a wasp or a bumblebee, I won't recklessly step on a beetle, which is just a beetle. If humans want to survive, there is a lot to do in the near future.

Humans always want to give everything a meaning. Nature has given its system a purpose, namely to preserve life. The gentle way insects work is threatened and destroyed by pesticides and climate change because we do one thing too rarely: think "further" and think to the end.

If we are smart, we deal with the consequences of overexploitation and the destruction of nature by pesticides before we act. Thinking later could be a fatal mistake.

A brief pause for the continuity of nature and life:
Humans, vegetation and wildlife, the oceans - everything is interwoven in a unique natural network. By renouncing great luxury, by respecting and rethinking people, the system can be maintained and perhaps we can stop this development: