Insect extinction, Japanese tree revelations, and world’s smelliest fruit

Forests News delves into last week’s headlines from around the globe:

Insects could vanish within a century

The first worldwide scientific review of insects has been published in the journal Biological Conservation, The Guardian exclusively reports. The results are sobering, more than 40% are declining with around a third endangered. The impacts of the extinction of insects, which at the current trajectory could happen within a century, would be “catastrophic to say the least” say the researchers.

Insects hold up all other ecosystems, either as pollinators, food for prey or recyclers of nutrients. Agricultural intensification is called out as the leading driver of the decline, with the heavy use of pesticides being the mainstay for blame…

Read the rest of news analysis at forestsnews.org

Other headlines featured in the story:

Japan’s millennia old trees can warn of history repeating

Tropical island forest on Guam to be dug up for military firing range

Why what ‘wilderness’ is matters

Inequality equals deforestation, says study

Durian causing deforestation in Malaysia, India Times

Is our global food system broken?

See the rest of the story at forestsnews.org

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