Going Green: Try and encourage insects into green spaces

They’ve depleted in huge numbers in recent years and the fact of the matter is they’re dwindling to seriously worrying numbers.

It might sound like food and insects aren’t related but we rely on a lot of insects to pollinate our crops and declining numbers can mean declining yields. Put simply rhey’re inextricably linked and taking care of insects will mean we go a way to taking care of crops and yields.

A House of Commons committee has suggested one of the ways to improve long term food security in the UK is to halt the decline of insects.

The report says: “Land use change, land management practices and pesticide usage are amongst the largest contributing factors to insect decline.

Committee chairman Greg Clark said: “Food security depends on maintaining and improving the biodiversity essential to ecosystems, and so does the much wider environment that we depend on for our lives, livelihoods and wellbeing.”

While farming practises need to be improved to protect wildlife, there are things we can all do to make life easier for the winged and legged small creatures of the UK.

No mow May might be next month but there’s no reason you can’t start it early – either on a patch of grass in your garden to see what happens with two months of non mowing or the whole of your lawn if you’re feeling brave and want to see what insects, birds and mammals you might attract.

Scattering wild flowerseeds will help produce a beautiful feature if you opt to stop mowing early too.

You’ll attract all sorts including butterflies so it’s really worth considering

Bees are also having an incredibly difficult time. 17 percent of bee species have become extinct in parts of the UK they used to thrive in and that’s bad news for us and entire eco systems.

There are more golf courses in the UK than solar farms and the great thing about solar farms is that entire ecosystems can live alongside them - farmers even put sheep in fields with them so they can graze under and beside them.

Avoiding harsh chemicals that kill bees is also critical. Many pesticides contain ‘forever’ chemicals that harm many creatures we care about.

Whether it’s a patch of garden or planting insect friendly plants like lavender and fox gloves, there’s plenty we can do to try and encourage winged and webbed creatures into our green spaces more.