Reports of an insect apocalypse are overblown but still concerning

By Adam Vaughan

ManuelVelasco/Getty

Reports of the death of insects may have been greatly exaggerated. Research out today finds that while an alarming 9 per cent of land-dwelling insects are being lost each decade, the state of the world’s insects is much more nuanced than warnings of an “insect apocalypse”.

The issue came to the fore in 2017, when a study found a 75 per cent decline in flying insects across parts of Germany due to environmental pressures such as intensive farming. But fears of an insect meltdown – and the impact on …