Letting the Insects Return

Today evening, I was visited by my new neighbours. Good sorted people in today’s language. We chatted about local politics, challenges in the hills, and slowly the conversation moved towards nature, a topic after my heart. After a long time, I met someone who understands concerns like the declining insect population, wildlife conservation, rewilding, and related matters. With so little time and so much to discuss, it felt like a breath of fresh air in a time when often everyone seems distant from the natural world, and at times, indifferent to it.

As the evening settled and the hills slipped into their slumber, the conversation has stayed with me. It is rare to find someone who notices what is missing. The hum that once filled the air, the flicker of wings at every step, the quiet, constant work of countless small lives. Today, that absence is becoming harder to ignore, yet strangely, it is still ignored.

As a child, I remember cleaning my father’s car windshield, often covered with insects after even a short drive. Today, it rarely happens with my own car, despite living so close to nature. I have come across others mentioning the same on social media, but it is something I notice for myself as well.

The declining insect population is a serious concern, and yet very few seem truly bothered. Pollination is the first and most visible casualty. Fruit set suffers, yields decline, and even the quality of produce changes. But pollination is only the beginning. The effects are far more layered, far more interconnected. Insects sit at the base of entire ecological systems. When they decline, the consequences ripple outward, affecting birds, reptiles, soil life, and ultimately, the health of the land itself. And everything in turn affects us. Just a few days back I read somewhere that ours may be the last generation to have seen fireflies !

Most people are quick to point towards the obvious culprits whenever I mention the declining insect population, the rampant use of insecticides and chemicals. And rightly so, for these have caused immense damage. But the conversation often stops there. What is spoken of far less is the steady disappearance of habitats. The hidden corners, the wild edges, the untended patches of land that once provided shelter and breeding grounds. In our pursuit of neatness and efficiency, we have erased the very spaces that sustained life.

Light pollution at night is another factor that rarely enters the discussion. Even in the hills, artificial light has begun to creep in. For nocturnal insects, especially moths, this is deeply disruptive. Drawn to light, they lose energy, fail to reproduce effectively, and fall easy prey. Their decline passes largely unnoticed, perhaps because people now live removed from the night itself, within sealed, brightly lit homes that shut out the natural rhythms of darkness. Yet their absence is not insignificant. Moths and other nocturnal insects play an important role in pollination, often visiting flowers that daytime pollinators do not. They are also a vital link in the food chain, sustaining birds, bats, and other wildlife.

Climate, too, plays its part, altering the delicate timing between flowering and insect activity. Seasons shift in ways that confuse rhythms evolved over centuries. What emerges too early finds nothing to feed on, and what blooms too late finds no one to visit. This year, the bees were already out when it snowed in the late winters (in January). The day temperatures warmed up quite early and there were very few flowers for them. It must have been hard.

In my orchard, I have been trying, in my own small ways, to respond to this. I have begun rewilding certain parts of the land, allowing them to grow as they will. Wildflowers emerge here and there, and small bushes and groundcover are left undisturbed. To some, these spaces may appear untidy, but in truth, they are homes. Places where insects can shelter, feed, and complete their life cycles. A few years ago, during the long stillness of the Covid lockdowns, kids and me took up a small project and built a pollinators’ hotel. It began as a simple, almost curious experiment, but it opened a window into a world we scarcely notice. Watching it over time, I began to understand just how many forms of life depend on the smallest of spaces. Since then, I have become more mindful of what I once cleared away without a second thought. Dry leaves are now left to rest where they fall. Small stacks of branches are placed here and there across the orchard. What might seem like debris is, in reality, shelter.

I avoid chemical interventions as far as possible. There are losses, of course. Leaves are eaten, fruits are sometimes spoilt. But over time, a balance begins to return. Predators appear, diversity builds, and the system grows more resilient. Some of my fruit trees recently got infested with aphids, thankfully the ladybird population is now growing and getting things under control.

There is always something flowering now in my orchard. Herbs are allowed to bloom, and in doing so, they attract a steady stream of pollinators. During dry periods, I provide some water too in some shallow bowls hidden under foliage. Fallen leaves and dead wood are not entirely cleared, but allowed to return to the soil slowly, supporting life along the way.

These are simple steps, almost insignificant when viewed against the scale of the problem. Yet, I hold on to the belief that such small actions matter. If more people begin to notice, to care, and to allow a little wildness back into their spaces, these small efforts can gather into something much larger.

When I stand in the orchard now, there are moments when life returns. A bee on a flower, a butterfly passing by, the soft buzz of bumblebees, the crickets going on and on in the dark corners of the garden. It is not what it once was, but it is not gone either. That is where hope lies. In leaving a patch untouched, in letting flowers bloom, in choosing to step back and letting nature take over. In remembering that even the smallest lives hold the world together. I saw that same hope when my neighbours spoke about rewilding a small patch near their home to help the insects.

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