Life on Earth is caught between a rock and a hard place. We’ve become a major force of nature in this Anthropocene epoch we are in; never before has a species of animal become so advanced, so destructive, so creative, so intuitive and so violent as we. It is too late for pointing fingers at who is responsible for Gaian degradation for we are all one kind – Mankind – and we must work together to conserve what is left of our wildlife and natural habitats. We have to address our ‘business as usual’ approach at once and dramatically lessen our amplification of an otherwise natural process if we wish to avoid a biological collapse.
The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period either after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago (about 8000 BC) with the end of the last glacial period. This Geological era we dominated as ours defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans – who’ve been around for a minuscule 200,000 years or so – or a few seconds in Geological time.
No doubt then, our collective recklessness has brought about dire and perhaps irreversible change to Mother Earth and our fellow creatures are facing a dire plight for survival, on top of their standard struggle to survive. Wildlife faces a double whammy. I believe the missing link here leading us to oversee the urgency of protecting Earth’s Biodiversity, is lacking the understanding that we – still members of the entire Eukaryotic Kingdom – are as much INTERCONNECTED with every living organism on the Planet as we were prior when we were prehistoric, prehuman members of the living world. Humankind will fall when entire species collapse at the bottom end of the classification hierarchy, leading to the demise of whole orders, Phyla, kingdoms, and domains like a Jenga tower when a crucial peg gets pulled away, ultimately destroying the whole structure of Life as a whole. We are all related by common ancestors somewhere in the lineage of evolutionary biology. As such, we are subject to precisely the same fate as our fellow creatures.
Insects, in my opinion, are the most crucial division of life underpinning all hierarchies above them. Insects have segmented bodies, jointed legs, and external skeletons. They feed birds, reptiles, other insects and even us, yet are on the brink of collapse. Once they disappear, it’s game over for us and all life on Earth. We’ll cease to have the grains, fruits and flowers we depend on for food as barely plants will become pollinated.
“Approximately 80 percent of all Earth plants are angiosperms, or flowering plants, that require pollination from either bees, butterflies or other pollinating insects” reports The Science Explorer. Wind is able to carry pollen from plant to plant, but predominantly, it is the wonderful Insects who carry out the noble task of pollinating the plants we depend on for our own survival. Without the insects, barely any plant life could exist, and there we have a BIG problem of catastrophic magnitude. “If insects were to disappear, the world would fall apart — there are no two ways about it,” said Goggy Davidowitz, a professor in the departments of entomology and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, in conversation with Live Science. Habitat loss and rising temperatures are the main reason the biomass of Insects are declining 8 times faster than that of Mammals.
I write this mostly as a general wavelength I’d like to share with the world and secondly as a plea for us all to do our utmost to reduce our negative impacts on the world and recognise the importance of conserving the organisms we share Planet Earth with. I cannot stress enough how important it is to align once more to the Interconnectivity of life and Interdependence of all forms on Earth, in that we simply cannot exist if nature collapses. We are nature, still connected and distinctly related to the web of life as we have been since emerging from the Oceans as single-celled organisms. It is imperative at this time that we snap out of the socialist, capitalist delusion that we’re are somehow artificial zombies separate from nature and reconnect with the harmonious level of connection we used to live by (which many of course still do).
Indigenous cultures and even recent eras of Humankind have brought about mindful, respectful attitudes, behaviours, and customs towards Earth and her beings for thousands of years. Perhaps a paradigm shift of this nature back into nature could save us from our postmodern psychological issues, too.