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| African Monarch butterfly © Shevaun Doherty |
"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned"
Peter Marshall
Summer is here, and as I write this, I’m sitting in my garden, bathed in sunshine, surrounded by flowers and the steady hum of bumblebees.
Every now and then a butterfly flits between the blossoms, pausing briefly to
sip on nectar before fluttering off to explore another garden.
All around me
nature is blissfully at work.
However this might not always be the case. A recent worrying report
by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), states that we are
losing entire species at an alarming rate, so much so that we are in danger of
losing 30-50% of all species by mid-century. Unlike previous mass extinctions,
this is entirely due to man’s devastating effect on the planet.
Of course, we all read things like this and wonder just how
we can help, but each of us can, in our own little way, and we can start in our
own back garden with the bees and the butterflies.Their numbers are in rapid
decline, and if they disappear, the effects will cascade throughout ecosystems,
affecting all aspects of life on earth.
