Saving our Insects with Dave Goulson

We are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction event, with extinctions occurring faster than at any time in the last 65 million years. ‘Bioabundance’ is in decline, with recent studies showing that insects, in particular, seem to be disappearing fast. If it continues, this will have profound consequences for mankind and for our planet. Dave Goulson will explain why insects are in decline, and suggest how we can all help to tackle this crisis, by turning our gardens and urban green spaces into oases for life. He will discuss the many things we should do, and those things we should not do, to welcome bumblebees, butterflies, and a plethora of other wildlife into our gardens and into our lives.

Dave Goulson is Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, specializing in bee ecology. He has published more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects. He is the author of Bumblebees; Their Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation, published in 2010 by Oxford University Press, and of the Sunday Times bestseller A Sting in the Tale, a popular science book about bumblebees, published in 2013 by Jonathan Cape, and now translated into fourteen languages. This was followed by A Buzz in the Meadow in 2014, Bee Quest in 2017, and The Garden Jungle in 2019. Goulson founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity that has grown to 12,000 members. He was: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Social Innovator of the Year in 2010; given Zoological Society of London’s Marsh Award for Conservation Biology in 2013; elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013; given the British Ecological Society Public Engagement Award in 2014; given Zoological Society of London’s Clarivate Award for Communicating Zoology in 2020. In 2015 he was named number 8 in BBC Wildlife Magazine’s list of the top 50 most influential people in conservation. In 2018, 2019 and 2020 he was named as a “Highly Cited Researcher” by Thompson ISI. He is a trustee of Pesticide Action Network, and an “Ambassador” for the UK Wildlife Trusts.

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