Thread by @BigIssue

🌎 It’s #EarthDay but the birds and bees of Britain are on the decline — and most people haven’t even noticed bigissue.com/news/environme…

🐝Biodiversity is the variety of life in an ecosystem.

Britain has lost half its biodiversity in the last couple of hundred years.

We’re in the bottom 10% of countries in the world and last in the G7. Last. #EarthDay2022
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🦋 Worse yet, we can’t be certain about the scale of loss.

Most biodiversity data is collected by volunteers, who flock towards charismatic creatures like butterflies and bees. But data for less popular species like spiders and wasps is seriously lacking.

🧺 You’d think such an urgent problem would make people sit up and notice. But in 2010, a survey found most Brits thought “biodiversity” was a washing powder.

This disengagement with nature has experts worried that the nature crisis has become invisible. #EarthDay

📚 The lack of awareness around the collapse in biodiversity is one of many reasons campaigners fought for a Natural History GCSE to be introduced in the UK's schools. That's now coming in 2025.

bigissue.com/news/environme…

🌎 Here’s the good news: biodiversity is one of the easiest problems you can act on at home, and you don’t even need a garden to help.

This #EarthDay, here are ways you can bring some life back into the land

bigissue.com/news/environme…

🌼Let it grow: Get ahead of the curve for #NoMowMay and stop mowing part or all of your lawn.

You’ll get more pollinators in your garden and help them keep our vital ecosystem going. You should also think twice about using pesticides

bigissue.com/news/environme…

🐦Build an animal hotel: Making a bug hotel can be as easy as leaving piles of rocks, twigs and rotting wood out. Bird houses and hedgehog houses will also help wildlife.

@WildlifeTrusts have step-by-step instructions for building one online
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🦔Make space for nature: Avoid paving over any green space at home, and allow real grass to grow instead of astroturf, giving nature space to breathe and live.

And making gaps in fences creates little hedgehog highways to help the critters get around

bigissue.com/news/environme…