this is the. i'm brian thomas for the entire news team don't forget you can always go to our web site did i view dot com to get more. mail. and the brand new delusion barlow spokes person devices the topics that are such a good climate change the return of. only recent check out. this

meadow is home to countless insects seemingly unassuming creatures that are far might here than meets the eye in fact insects were the 1st flying animals for some 400000000 years they've been a key part of the earth's ecosystem. and smelling a butterfly or a beautiful wild be brings us so much joy that part of our culture and nature and of the beauty that lifts our spirits. insects are an unrivaled evolutionary success but now they are under threat. around the world insects are in catastrophic decline some species are dying out many rural areas have grown silent alarmingly so for insects are at the center of all life on earth. then unsafe sex disappear and eco systems collapse that would be a catastrophe. the world of insects is complex. beautiful and

fragile. their numbers are dwindling rapidly. around the world more and more people are sounding the alarm without insects our entire food chain would collapse is in the hopeless ruthless exploitation in agriculture and constant push for more stripping our fields down to the very last seed leaving nothing for animals it's insanity and sometimes it just makes me furious. and then i'm off and think if i wait another 15 years insects will be gone forever it's like climate change we're at the point where we need to take action in a very serious way in all my.

mealworms make for a hearty breakfast and the 1st guests are already here we begin our investigation into the disappearance of insects was a visit to an expert on birds. the world of insects and of birds are closely intertwined it's a paper that holds is one of germany's leading bird experts and the former director of the cell ornithological research unit at the max planck institute. as for me being out in nature is an important breathing is food and drink. and i stay in a miserable hotel and get served eggs that comes from god knows where i notice what i'm missing. when i wake up in the morning and feel strong and clear headed i go to my chicken and i know it's going to be a good day. well that's all i need to enjoy life that's all i need to be happy

absolutely. it's. time to begin. it's just. this is a true paradise at least nowadays in the past this would have been completely ordinary back then every village from garmisch to flensburg would have looked like this just about every household would have kept chickens which they'd feed out my yard chickens would have been joined by sparrows to spread start black birds starlings because of all those small farms you saw birds all across germany from the northern coast to the alps. nowadays you have to make a special effort to create this. so where are the birds. there are never a bird haven't. young has slings feet on insects brought to them by their parents

and insects are in increasingly short supply nowadays. pay to have been told has been observing this decline for decades when he 1st began working at the institute in the 1970 s. the researchers used to catch insects to feed the birds over the years the number of insects dwindled today there are hardly any. since 1900 our bird populations have declined by about 80 percent across the she's migratory and resident birds birds that eat insects and those that he grains in seat and one major reason is loss of habitat and breeding grounds due to overbuilding appetite destruction the feeling of ponds. but another important factor is the loss of food both the loss of seeds and grains and the loss of insects which birds feed on. pitt about old often sits at his

window and documents the stark decline in bird populations. in the past while the herds used to grow amidst the wheat fields their seeds helped nourish birds but those days are long gone hate about old says modern farming practices are to blame it's today's farms are too efficient too antiseptic and their monoculture is he says that's why he's created his own kingdom a lush meadow orchard interspersed with grasses and wild plants that are paradise for insects. so it's the insect then all those different we and plants used to be home to hundreds and thousands of insect species they're gone now to. all those monoculture fields planted with nothing but corn wheat barley oats

when it comes to the food that birds need they're no better than a desert that also holds true when it comes to the gardens people plant nowadays there's nothing left for birds to eat it's the loss of habitat and of food that have caused this dramatic population decline. both birds and insects have suffered they're drawn to the few wild meadows that are left in germany like here in the far west of the country this lush meadow grows naturally without any kind of fertiliser it's home to more than $100.00 species of plant and insect. a modern farm has little to offer by comparison. change how we farm to help protect and sustain insect populations. we paid a visit to the university of highboy. at the institute for nature conservation and

landscape ecology alexandra. klein is investigating the role of insects in agricultural landscapes. into tides again to determine the species we examine every little detail on the hair each individual poor or the antenna those little horns you see on bees because we can count the number of segments on the flagellum to determine whether a b.s. male or female i mean if we can see whether it's gathered palm and we examine the color of the pollen which is really fascinating to figure out what kind it is applying to the. climate is studying how to preserve the diversity of plants and animals in our modern cultivated landscapes. insects are crucial in preserving that biodiversity. there are tens of thousands of

insect species they play an important role in decomposing organic matter dead plants would animals and feces so insects help keep the earth clean. there also pollinators without them we wouldn't have fruit or vegetables and there wouldn't be food for other living creatures either. without insects other animals would starve like fish salamanders lizards and birds in fact all plants and animals would die leaving us with nothing but bare earth even coffee and chocolate wouldn't exist. we pay a visit to a farm near lake constance there are 100000 apple trees on this farm and they all need pollinators. marcus marshall is going to help alexander climb from the university of pride board carry out an experiment even though he's not an organic farmer marco's marshall has

a keen interest in bees. he has beehives on his property and has set up what are called flower buffer strips. his orchards appear to be thriving so is he affected by declining insect populations. the others are being here so it's a problem for me i depend on nature and we need insects and the birds need them to thank them. for the guns of. what would happen if insects were to die off completely. if the bees were to disappear. right alexandra maria klein is hoping to find out more with an ingenious experiment if you have a. that's why for 5 trees that's all we need it and they're going to wrap several apple trees these water pipes will serve as scaffolding for the net the fossils that move. from it. it's

a bit improvised sure but we want this to be quick and easy the owner can't of course of course over the craving. for this gorgeous and. next comes the net. it will keep insects away from the blossoms on this small group of trees. the trees already have netting on that to protect them from hail now they're getting another canopy. all around the test patch are rows and rows of apple trees. for much of the national size is perfect no insects or pollinators can get in but the wind will still be able to transport pollen through the net joyce lloyd. apple blossoms can be pollinated by the wind as well as by insects.

and. he said what's this red sign for this is where we don't want any b. . and what about over here. and here one out of this is where we want to be used to pollinate we're market with yellow for honey bees. the for the hunter story and this is where we'll pollinate by hand will pollinate every single blossom here so this will mark with green room so here she mince will do the work of pollination. if we end up with more apples here high quality apples that would mean that there aren't enough beings that lay constancy. the experiment is designed to see whether hand pollination is more successful than what nature can offer. klein is expecting that the covered trees will yield fewer apples the marshals

aren't so sure. i always say if we see one be. happy to take part in this experiment to see how the bees are doing. to be honest i think we can get out without the. so is he right time will tell. a much larger experiment is underway in the eifel region of western germany 8 research institutes have joined forces here to investigate what's behind the insect die off. researchers from clay felt who have conducted a number of important studies are also here. one of them is martin saw. 2 years ago he published the results of a long term study of some protected areas in germany which found a 75 percent decline in flying insect biomass over 27 years. the alarming

results made headlines around the world. zorak is setting up a number of traps along the line extending from a conventionally farm field into a nature preserve. the researchers want to find out if any changes are taking place along this line. what is happening to insects in the zone of contact separating the nature preserve from the farmland. livia's scheffler is the project leader. she is investigating the impact of modern agricultural methods including the use of pesticides and fertilizers on the diversity of plant and animal life in nearby protected areas they're measuring

catching and examining everything they can get their hands on insects that fly bugs that crawl vegetation birds and even bats doesn't on fire and fees are traps for ground welling in sex like beat on the roof of a little bit of a pipe into the ground. war this is a final theatre that. insects can crawl into and. or and then fall into the alcohol which preserves them for the d.n.a. analysis will carry out later i'll put this right in the range it's the beatles will crawl on it. so what kinds of results are they expecting to find. now. i think i tried to narrow down what factors are responsible for the decline in insect populations. with that information we can make evidence based recommendations and advice policy makers. might also want to work with pharmacies to develop adaptations that will allow the farms to thrive but also provide more

scope for biodiversity mia gold gets and. we accompany martin sorrell to clay felt he's bringing a few more samples with him for analysis he's already examined tens of thousands of similar samples. in the interim one of your own for those in the field of entomology we're dealing with an immense diversity of insect species and this and this we know that there are well over 33000 species of insect in germany but what we've found is that most of these species are suffering from a serious population decline or minus the difference in. the kind felt researchers have been able to document these changes over decades they

have been systematically catching counting and recording insect populations for years always using the same methods. this makes their data especially reliable. they have also amassed a unique trove of samples which they keep in storage. for many years the work of entomologists wasn't taken all that seriously. their painstaking research and documentation seemed old fashioned times have changed and now entomologists are in high demand the researchers 1st take a look at the catch before they begin counting and classifying. martin zork suspects that at least $1400.00 species have already vanished once a species has died out in a particular region it can't be reintroduced each species fills a particular nation an ecosystem that can't be replicated. to martin saw it says

the true scale of the die off is only now becoming apparent. at the alexander koenig research museum in bonn livia scheffler is analyzing samples from the eiffel region. what insect species do they contain. the days in which each insect would be counted and classified individually are long gone. insects taxonomist are in short supply nowadays livia scheffler says it would take decades to classify this all by hand. today researchers employed genetic analysis to distinguish among insect species. the computer compares the genetic results with an online database and returns the results. one of libya scheffler schools is determining what role past decides are playing in the insect die off.

for the genetic analysis the insects are pulverized and suspended in a solution. to. the aids research institutes collaborating on the project hope to expand on the results documented by the feld study. in all men data so all the study published by our colleagues in cray felt seems to have opened a window that will allow us to do something to preserve species diversity. one or maybe we can get politicians to listen to what we're saying. we return to lake constance the eye. apple plantation is in full bloom. alexander klein has brought a doctoral student with her they're collecting pollen. these are in elster apple trees the 2 biologists planned to pollinate the elster trees by hand.

but just gathering the pollen is no easy task they have to collect the pollen when the pods are perfectly right. now they go to the test area to pollinate every single blossom by hand. and it takes the 2 of them 5 hours to pollinate just 5 trees. to pollinate every tree on the plantation by hand it would cost about a $1000000.00 euros a year so one could harvest well this year old. will this be the future of apple farming. you. need to pollinating fruit trees by hand i hope not to heat their competition is just a few metres away in the beehive as if it's almost full hardly an empty spot. the

beehive is situated right at the edge of the apple plantation marcos marshall has several of them and he's pleased with the results. of the demoted you see that mason they do a lot in apple plantations if you get out because of you look at the big one the just one inside its belly is covered in a pollen. mason bees are very efficient pollinators just like many wild beast species in this colony. the fleeting eye mason bees fly at different times than honeybees they can fly when the weather is not quite as nice or when it's a bit windy or so they compliment the honey bee it's the principle of buy. iow diversity in action every species occupies a particular nisha when all the nations are filled and one species drops out the others will fill the breach and everything still gets pollinated to bring more than one human of a strong slice still. that pollination is crucial for fruit farming so as marcus

marshall wright can orchards thrive even without being. alexander family a climber and her students continue on to a place with a wealth of insect biodiversity romania is europe's last remaining paradise for insects. in. this part of transylvania is pristine almost untouched. for meshaal let's find a spot for our 1st session it's pretty windy so maybe down there and our. the team are looking forward to what they'll find. yet come for we mainly come to remain young because in a very short time we find a wide diversity of species of the same species we have at home but it takes a lot longer to find the afghans like it out of. here on the hillside each student

is observing an area of about 3 by 3 metres for 30 minutes at a time they try to catch and record all the insects they see. sheep graze on the matter those in this part of romania but it's also good for the insect population. then the students find something special a moth caterpillar a lovely creature it will mature into a spur talk moth. we consider that once we can try to feed it to death and. look at starting to eat and so forth and it's pretending to be at a point innocent dangerous and you get has a spike back here and that does help scare off the birds. for.

the diversity of the landscape is mirrored in the diversity of insect species. a landscape dotted with small fields and meadows lined with hedges will be home to many many here any one shaft looking at the landscape here's a small patch that's been mowed for the cow in the barn state on the lake tomorrow they'll move the patch next to it and over there it's already grown back so every kind of insect will find a spot here and that's why there are so many of them of course we don't have this in germany anymore. the group goes to 2 more medals each one of them brimming with life. countless grasshoppers bees and butterflies.

back in the makeshift laboratory at the guesthouse the insects are examined and classified. its work that requires concentration and a steady hand. in a single afternoon they found an immense variety of species romania still has many stable biota hopes but 90 percent of farmland worldwide makes intensive use of agricultural chemicals which destabilize them. how can we make agricultural land hospitable again to a diversity of species. and enough i think a land for tough sustainable agriculture next to make use of smaller fear that ideally we wouldn't use those huge tractors because they create a lot of problems or they compact the soil that fosters huge monocultures and destroys habitats. smaller fields sometimes lined by a hedge or a strip of flowers a pile of rocks that's what we need to bring back again thing using land less

efficiently would be a boon for insect life but not for farmers subsidies might allow farmers to use fewer pesticides and to reduce the size of their fields bend it and if we farm that way then it might not be so bad if pesticides gets used once in a while guns and that's why it's so important to create more varied landscape we have to draw on farmers and they're willing to do that they're often wonderful people with an immense troupe of knowledge then think what we need to make them the conservationists of the future for food so that they can produce food and maintain the diversity of species. unlovely vision of the future. after a day of work the students have something special in store a night time expedition. but

i would say if you think of it only has one jumping leg. a cricket called a want to buy it or a species that suffered under modern agriculture then comes another rare find a huge moth. on the right. of the students have never seen a pretty talk mouth like this before it's one of the largest most species. their visit has taken them to a world that vanished 60 years ago in places like germany so what is changed over the past 6 decades farmers have used pesticides on a wide scale many suspect this has something to do with the insect die off.

at a laboratory belonging to the university of copeland the 1st samples from the eiffel region project have arrived cost and pull examines the soil samples looking for pesticides. it seems like a routine task but agricultural fields are not systematically examined for pesticide residue you. know we always here are arable land and the fertility of the soil is so important. so you think that over the past 50 years we'd have been examining it regularly but that's not the case we have solid data about water contamination but soil the entire terrestrial system has never really been looked at that. it seems no one really knows how much pesticide residue is in the soil how toxic are the pesticides that get used in the different codes for most people if you look at say 20 grams of insecticide project here 20 grams is like a chocolate bar. and we say you distribute that on an area that's 100 by 100 meters

. that would kill all of the insects moving around on that patch of land. ports and so it really is very toxic for. the samples from the eiffel region are being examined for residue the research project will last 3 years the german institute responsible for pesticides only monitors the use of single past sides in practice though farmers use cocktails of many chemicals whose interactions are unknown. because. there's meanwhile a consensus that pesticides have a major impact on the loss of biodiversity that we've observed in insects birds and other animals. we're going to have to grapple with this. over

about 30 years we've seen reduction of biomass of some 80 percent. think if we wait another 15 years then insects will be gone it's like climate change we're at a point where we absolutely must take action now on a grand scale. enormous. cost and pull says that 30 percent of agricultural land should actually be allowed to lie fallow permanently given the massive insect die off only drastic measures can make a difference picked a better hold would likely agree the ornithologist is known for speaking his mind but he doesn't just talk he takes action this seems to be a cornfield what the support from the hind seal man foundation picked up assholes has transformed the field into a lake burgeoning with life in just 10 years the 10 hector stretch of land has been transformed into a rich and varied habitat dotted with ponds and ditches. together with a foundation pit about old has created 100 more bio topes like this around lake

constance could this be part of the answer. just seal is slipped. in the goal is bio diversity a diversity of species in as many bio topes as possible. more creating a kind of noah's ark and we hope that by creating more noise arcs that these areas of ecological diversity will be the seed that helps return biodiversity to all the land surrounding them and that's not possible right now right now there is no way to change our way farm in order to allow a large number of plants and animals to return to those areas for me that's going to take a long time in the meantime we're creating this kind of conservation bio to open which we preserve a diversity of species and they're like little museums of nature and we hope that they might one day allow diversity to spread elsewhere too.

it's an ambitious plan scientists say that for it to succeed our agricultural practices would need to become much more insect friendly that would mean more hedges buffer strips between fields and a massive reduction in the use of chemicals. even if we convince farmers to work in a much more insect friendly way we won't necessarily succeed in replenishing insect life on a large scale like pollution and traffic would still be a major problem so we'll have to wait to see. my to pollution our modern predilection for using artificial light to turn night into day. is this having a larger impact on the insect population than we realize. to find out more we pay a visit to france hoka head of the light pollution working group at the institute of freshwater ecology. he accompanies us to the vest tough aligned star park

northeast of berlin. hans who has been investigating the impact of artificial light on insects for many years. lying to the wrong time can wreak havoc on fragile ecosystems. the biologist is preparing a test field studies conducted by hokus colleagues have shown that artificial light will draw more than a 1000000000 insects out of the ecosystem on just a single summer night in germany. but most of those insects will die. this test field is made up of 12 streetlights here in the middle of the star park darkness is a natural resource that is protected and preserved here so that makes it the perfect place to carry out his research. what we want to investigate is whether

light at night has an effect on ecosystems and what kind of effect it has on land ecosystems in this case an expanse of grass and on neighboring ditches which are about 5 metres wide how many insects become disoriented and are attracted by the street lights. now adays we call this the vacuum cleaner effect or a street light is almost like a vacuum that sucks these animals out of the surrounding our dads and they don't ever return and. it's believed that at night many insects navigate by moonlight. streetlights are so bright that insects are drawn to them and can't escape. our mafia populations also declining. babies fly during the day but many pollinators are not turned on and they also play a very important role in the pollination process as we are now beginning to realize

. and you have to keep in mind half of the earth is dark at any one moment and about half of all insects are nocturnal so much of the diversity we have on earth has adapted to darkness height. those nocturnal insects are powerfully attracted to light they fly around the lamp until they're exhausted and can't continue. console has found that street lights serve as a kind of barrier. a row of streetlights divide up the landscape much of the way that roads do. they create patches of land in which insects are trapped and no genetic exchange takes place. various small flies. mages. not a lot right now it is and. compare that to these videos from the 1970 s. which we found in our archive.

even in the star park there doesn't seem to be much buzzing and flying around here . also says he's seen a significant reduction in insect populations. 600 kilometers further south children are helping preserve insect populations the children at the stake care spend a lot of time outdoors today they're planting flowering plants sorrel fossils and ragged robin flowers. the children are helping create new habitats for biodiversity at the edge of an industrial region and then the. diversity has suffered enormously over the past 30 years. populations have gone down by 80 percent we have to do something so 5 years ago the town of ops commitment asked what can we do

that's when we started planting wildflowers. and a project called the upstream and wildflowers summer is now underway it features many different events and provides local people with ideas for how they can help preserve biodiversity. the community has already planted 75 meadows of wildflowers . there are also buffer strips of wild flowers which philip want to vega is taking a look at today. he advises communities and other groups about how to create flourishing natural landscapes. the biologist is also a passionate photographer his photos document the beauty that thrives with sustainable farming practices. to the bone to vega says that many politicians municipalities and local people want to help but don't know how many. people don't know what will help and then say they plan to mix of plants but that doesn't really do much for insects. then there's

what i call the catalog model thing people think they need to plant a flower of every color but for the insects which are really suffering that's not what matters it doesn't guns under people and. natural habitats that provide refuge in the winter are more valuable like the meadow on the other side of the street. flowers are like refueling stations they provide nectar but not habitats. but mayor i mean kimmel knows they attract people to. within the community you do need a bit of visual appeal side town we allow areas to lie on tended over the winter many insects spend the winter in stalks of hay or the stems of other plants and those winter habitats are hugely important. we need our insect factories places where they can survive the winter reproduce under starved we don't need those

refueling areas which the ply nectar and pollen but don't make any difference when it comes to increasing insect numbers. we need to place a higher value on insects and we need to promote alternative farming methods methods that value our natural surroundings rather than just boosting guild's at all cost. and meddling. to fly or a beautiful wild be brings us so much joy that part of our culture and nature and of the beauty that lifts our spirits. summer has now become fall it's harvest time at the apple plantation near lake constance what are the results of the experiment. hand pollination yielded a very large number of apples but most are too small to be sold on the market they'll have to be turned into apple juice. for marcus marshall that's a financial loss. the low quality apples yielded by hand pollination have shown

that it's not a viable alternative. and hence pollination is far too labor intensive for. them and if you want to do it right you need a lot of experience and. there's no way we can pollinate by hand any idea who would even do it. now comes the moment of truth what happened to the trees that were completely cut off from insects alexander klein is surprised there are a few rather large apples here. kind of kana there are no seeds the bees weren't here and they didn't pollinate are no seeds also affects the apples nutritional profile so this would be a big change which one i'm nothing. without b.s. the quality of apples would suffer. klein says the lack of seed would be a serious problem for the trees would not be able to reproduce isn't there big with

a different nutritional profile and wouldn't withstand storage and there aren't enough of them so we can't do without insects they're irreplaceable. to fill in a major advocate for insects and birds and all of that not everything is diet here yet it lay constant and we're doing our best we've planted hundreds of hectares of meadows with flowers and every agricultural field around here as a buffer strip of meadow land surrounding it almost i think we're headed in the right direction we farmers are doing a lot for insects but there aren't enough of us each and every one of us needs to start rethinking things. the experiment showed that hands pollination increases the yield by about 70 percent but with a loss in quality the trees that were covered in insect proof nets soft 30 percent reduction in the harvest and those seeds. but. what we

saw is that when the beast do the pollination and we have a good harvest many apples and excellent quality of the bees were the best pollinators. the apple in the middle is the winner a co-production of marcus marshall his trees and the insects our expedition into the world of insects is drawing to a close what if we learned. our roads and traffic and the heavily built environment are harmful to insect life light pollution is also luring untold millions of insects to their death. biggest threat isn't just real farming the spread of monocultures and the intensive use of pesticides over decades much of our land has been transformed into insect free zones and it's still unknown what effect pesticide cocktails might be having. we need to transform our landscapes to make room for hedges meadows and buffer strips alongside cropland we need farmers who

are compensated for promoting biodiversity. communities and people who resort areas where nature can flourish and we need to understand that without insects our own survival is also in peril. and produce the last of their kind in cypress or song birds are threatened with extinction every year around half a 1000000 of them end up as a delicacy. it's prohibited but for the bird mafia it's a lucrative business. and by our presence or never location on the creaminess nice to know that we're going to be there. in 90 minutes w. . if you and justice and freedom the 1st words

of the german national anthem through central valley was that the foundation of this country. have these values to go to. visit to live by and to bring the principles of unity justice and freedom nowhere for you to. start over 21st on d w. 2 fronts your own tony there's a scene here and when your mother was born in 1969 the world was already 80 years old you know my grandchildren were born after the war fell born in a mine and. 3 generations. on a journey through german history. starts number 60 on d w. play

. this is live from berlin and the deal is done britain and the european union say they have reached an agreement on the u.k.'s departure from the e.u. but any deal still needs to be backed by all the e.u.'s member states and the u.k. parliament so what are the prospects of success.