The drooling masses listened to morons like Ckarkson and here we are….
Thetonn on
My favourite example of integrating urban and rural habitats remains Sonian forest, just south of Brussels.
For people who don’t know, there is literally a UNESCO forest just immediately south of Brussels. It is directly connected to an urban public park. It also has dedicated bus routes and a train station in the middle of it just to service people who want to visit the forest.
It is properly designed to have a massive number of different routes for walking and bikes, and they shut off certain parts at different times of the year to limit the impact on the local wildlife.
It really represents the difference to me between thinking it would be nice for people living in cities to be able to access nature, and actually proactively working to deliver it.
I am very confident that, if we wanted to, we could create a proper green belt that gave people a lot more access to green space, protected nature, and built a load more houses in a way that was profitable for housebuilders, but it would require a state willing to actively plan for it and spend money.
NextFriendship3102 on
I am absolutely with this, but I find the endless environmental doom mongering that then doesn’t take place (polar bear numbers collapsing, Maldives disappearing underwater, Great Barrier Reef about to disappear, next ice age coming any minute now) to be hugely detrimental to when there is potentially something genuinely catastrophic happening like this.
Panther924 on
They are spraying chemicals from planes all over the UK people are.saying they haven’t seen Bee either ??
DeliveryCreepy9565 on
Not surprisingly, a new study also revealed that since the emergency laws on pesticides was passed, we’ve seen far higher rates of pesticides on our foods than our European neighbors. Tell me the two aren’t related.
Here’s the article for anyone interested: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/19/revealed-far-higher-pesticide-residues-allowed-on-food-since-brexit
Sunnz31 on
I saw a butterfly a few days ago.
I was surprised and smiled then I realised I was only surprised as I haven’t seen or noticed one for a very long time.
I’ve had more white butterflies in my garden than ever – although this might be because my Brussels sprouts are overwhelmed with caterpillars and I’ve just let nature do its thing
Annajbanana on
Everywhere I see this. I saw so many buddleia with nothing on them, no bees, no butterflies which love it. I get to the UK once a year and it’s shocking to me how obvious it is.
phlex77 on
noticed the same with wasps, in fact, i’ve hardly seen any this year,,,, granted i don’t really like them but they’ve got a part to play in the big scheme of things, worrying times folks
Sufficient-Cover5956 on
I sacrificed much of my small garden to caterpillar and moth this year as I couldn’t bring myself to kill them. Would be nice if the butterflies would keep still long enough for a photo
SlySquire on
Dry summer last year. Wet spring and cool summer this year. Bad weather for caterpillars and then butterfly’s. I can’t read all the article but blaming this years decline mainly on pesticides is idiotic. You get years of bad weather. Population declines happen.
Spiders and beetles are booming from the weather at the moment.
daiwilly on
If most of us die there will be more for the billionaires….and relax!
amusingjapester23 on
Its a terrible thing, but the good news is that over half a million immigrants (net) are coming in a good year and we are getting ready to build on the green belts.
This means more new brain’s to solve the enviromental problems we face and more chance’s for people to be around nature.
Martysghost on
I had a lot of butterfly’s and bees this year, I’ve only really started paying attention to them so I can’t observe a decline but I left a stretch of hedge unmanaged and when it was in flower you could go out and spot an average of 5+ in just one section, had a mix of cabbage whites, speckled brown ones and red ones I think were painted ladies, nothing I identified was rare but the ones I did ID were present in decent numbers. I noticed I have an accidental bee hive, I used a cut tree stump as kinda a garden ornament/feature and hole cutter bees have made it into their nest so I see loads of them. I do plant flowers to encourage insects but all the action was almost exclusively on the hedge I just let go wild this year, they went straight past everything I’ve done on purpose and went for the neglect 😅
AtillaThePundit on
It’s bleak as fuck. We rewilded our back garden when we moved in, previously gravel and flags , now just wildflowers and clover . This year we have had maybe 3 species of butterfly but only a couple of each and we are pretty rural . We also have bats etc, but we had absolutely shitloads of wildflowers and the lack of bees was stark. They eventually started showing up but I remember summers 15-20 years ago where bees were swarming over everything that had a petal. I’ve barely seen a wasp this year either .
salamanderwolf on
People can’t complain about this and then be happy about the planning regulations being torn up and Greenbelt becoming fair game.
We should be forcing building on brown belt land, forcing builders to place a certain percentage of nature into their plans, looking at making solar panels standard in new builds, allocating land for more allotments, forcing larger green parks, more tree planting etc. In other words integrating nature into our new build estates. Better for the planet, better for the mental health of us.
But it’s difficult and expensive so it won’t happen.
I seriously feel sorry for kids today. They will never see some of the stuff the rest of us have, unless its on screens or in a zoo.
SojournerInThisVale on
Hardly a surprise. Look at nearly any millennial buying a house (all the way from the oldest to the youngest). They work on the garden and out come any trees or flowers. At best you get just grass, at worst you get plastic grass. We need a national movement to give people the confidence to actually run a garden properly
DepressiveVortex on
You can buy caterpillars with food online when they are in season. It can be a fun little activity you can do with your kids and will help increase the number of butterflies.
Here is an Amazon link to some, currently unavailable at this time of year.
So we banned neonectoids and insect population fell?
So we should reverse the ban?
shrunkenshrubbery on
When I ride my motorbike through the countryside in the summer my visor doesn’t get dirty any more. The summer insects are all but gone now.
Lower_Discussion4897 on
Meanwhile residents in some places have been cutting down wild flower patches deliberately left to grow and allow a little sanctuary for these creatures, because they worry about the effect on their property values. We are truly not a part of nature.
fishandbanana on
Meanwhile the breaking news all day on tv is how some rich billionaire guy who died over a decade ago sexually harassed some of his staff
Marconi7 on
And what does the government want to do? Destroy more of the precious British countryside to house even more on our overpopulated island.
Laarbruch on
I went to Norway earlier in the summer
The amount of insects compared to the UK was astounding, like it was in the 80s and 90s
Cities and parks were built around being insect friendly
Common-Sandwich2212 on
Jesus we can’t even get butterflies right in this country anymore
dr_tardyhands on
It sounds like some kind of an inverse biblical plague: on day 1 the butterflies were gone, .., etc.
Ill_Pain_1456 on
Ten years ago the lavender plant in our garden was almost impossible to see due to how many bees were on there. Now I’m lucky if I see one a week
29 Comments
AND.
Nobody will care until it’s too late.
Bats
Butterflies
Bees
Who cares.
The drooling masses listened to morons like Ckarkson and here we are….
My favourite example of integrating urban and rural habitats remains Sonian forest, just south of Brussels.
For people who don’t know, there is literally a UNESCO forest just immediately south of Brussels. It is directly connected to an urban public park. It also has dedicated bus routes and a train station in the middle of it just to service people who want to visit the forest.
It is properly designed to have a massive number of different routes for walking and bikes, and they shut off certain parts at different times of the year to limit the impact on the local wildlife.
It really represents the difference to me between thinking it would be nice for people living in cities to be able to access nature, and actually proactively working to deliver it.
I am very confident that, if we wanted to, we could create a proper green belt that gave people a lot more access to green space, protected nature, and built a load more houses in a way that was profitable for housebuilders, but it would require a state willing to actively plan for it and spend money.
I am absolutely with this, but I find the endless environmental doom mongering that then doesn’t take place (polar bear numbers collapsing, Maldives disappearing underwater, Great Barrier Reef about to disappear, next ice age coming any minute now) to be hugely detrimental to when there is potentially something genuinely catastrophic happening like this.
They are spraying chemicals from planes all over the UK people are.saying they haven’t seen Bee either ??
Not surprisingly, a new study also revealed that since the emergency laws on pesticides was passed, we’ve seen far higher rates of pesticides on our foods than our European neighbors. Tell me the two aren’t related.
Here’s the article for anyone interested: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/19/revealed-far-higher-pesticide-residues-allowed-on-food-since-brexit
I saw a butterfly a few days ago.
I was surprised and smiled then I realised I was only surprised as I haven’t seen or noticed one for a very long time.
Did make me sad after that.
So beautiful
MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….MORE INFRASTRUCTURE….
I’ve had more white butterflies in my garden than ever – although this might be because my Brussels sprouts are overwhelmed with caterpillars and I’ve just let nature do its thing
Everywhere I see this. I saw so many buddleia with nothing on them, no bees, no butterflies which love it. I get to the UK once a year and it’s shocking to me how obvious it is.
noticed the same with wasps, in fact, i’ve hardly seen any this year,,,, granted i don’t really like them but they’ve got a part to play in the big scheme of things, worrying times folks
I sacrificed much of my small garden to caterpillar and moth this year as I couldn’t bring myself to kill them. Would be nice if the butterflies would keep still long enough for a photo
Dry summer last year. Wet spring and cool summer this year. Bad weather for caterpillars and then butterfly’s. I can’t read all the article but blaming this years decline mainly on pesticides is idiotic. You get years of bad weather. Population declines happen.
Spiders and beetles are booming from the weather at the moment.
If most of us die there will be more for the billionaires….and relax!
Its a terrible thing, but the good news is that over half a million immigrants (net) are coming in a good year and we are getting ready to build on the green belts.
This means more new brain’s to solve the enviromental problems we face and more chance’s for people to be around nature.
I had a lot of butterfly’s and bees this year, I’ve only really started paying attention to them so I can’t observe a decline but I left a stretch of hedge unmanaged and when it was in flower you could go out and spot an average of 5+ in just one section, had a mix of cabbage whites, speckled brown ones and red ones I think were painted ladies, nothing I identified was rare but the ones I did ID were present in decent numbers. I noticed I have an accidental bee hive, I used a cut tree stump as kinda a garden ornament/feature and hole cutter bees have made it into their nest so I see loads of them. I do plant flowers to encourage insects but all the action was almost exclusively on the hedge I just let go wild this year, they went straight past everything I’ve done on purpose and went for the neglect 😅
It’s bleak as fuck. We rewilded our back garden when we moved in, previously gravel and flags , now just wildflowers and clover . This year we have had maybe 3 species of butterfly but only a couple of each and we are pretty rural . We also have bats etc, but we had absolutely shitloads of wildflowers and the lack of bees was stark. They eventually started showing up but I remember summers 15-20 years ago where bees were swarming over everything that had a petal. I’ve barely seen a wasp this year either .
People can’t complain about this and then be happy about the planning regulations being torn up and Greenbelt becoming fair game.
We should be forcing building on brown belt land, forcing builders to place a certain percentage of nature into their plans, looking at making solar panels standard in new builds, allocating land for more allotments, forcing larger green parks, more tree planting etc. In other words integrating nature into our new build estates. Better for the planet, better for the mental health of us.
But it’s difficult and expensive so it won’t happen.
I seriously feel sorry for kids today. They will never see some of the stuff the rest of us have, unless its on screens or in a zoo.
Hardly a surprise. Look at nearly any millennial buying a house (all the way from the oldest to the youngest). They work on the garden and out come any trees or flowers. At best you get just grass, at worst you get plastic grass. We need a national movement to give people the confidence to actually run a garden properly
You can buy caterpillars with food online when they are in season. It can be a fun little activity you can do with your kids and will help increase the number of butterflies.
Here is an Amazon link to some, currently unavailable at this time of year.
https://amzn.eu/d/dmo3BAe
So we banned neonectoids and insect population fell?
So we should reverse the ban?
When I ride my motorbike through the countryside in the summer my visor doesn’t get dirty any more. The summer insects are all but gone now.
Meanwhile residents in some places have been cutting down wild flower patches deliberately left to grow and allow a little sanctuary for these creatures, because they worry about the effect on their property values. We are truly not a part of nature.
Meanwhile the breaking news all day on tv is how some rich billionaire guy who died over a decade ago sexually harassed some of his staff
And what does the government want to do? Destroy more of the precious British countryside to house even more on our overpopulated island.
I went to Norway earlier in the summer
The amount of insects compared to the UK was astounding, like it was in the 80s and 90s
Cities and parks were built around being insect friendly
Jesus we can’t even get butterflies right in this country anymore
It sounds like some kind of an inverse biblical plague: on day 1 the butterflies were gone, .., etc.
Ten years ago the lavender plant in our garden was almost impossible to see due to how many bees were on there. Now I’m lucky if I see one a week