Imagine a world called Fairyland where a good fairy bestows life to everyone in exchange for the right to exist peacefully among the rest of the world’s inhabitants. This is more than a fair exchange, because all life in Fairyland depends on the benevolence of the fairy. There are no political debates about whether to protect the fairy, because no one could exist without her.
Now let’s turn Fairyland into reality. Planet Earth is identical to Fairyland, with one key difference: life as we know it is not sustained by a miraculous fairy, but by insects. Insects pollinate 87.5% of all plants and 90% of flowering plants; plants turn energy from the sun into the food that all animals need to exist. Insects are the primary means by which the food created by plants is delivered to animals. Most vertebrates do not eat plants directly; far more often, they eat insects that have converted plant sugars and carbohydrates into the vital proteins and fats that fuel complex food webs.
– Paraphrased from Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
– E.O. Wilson
