Dave Goulson was the kind of little boy you worry about. When he was nine years old, there was nothing he loved more than looking for roadkill, slicing open the bodies and pickling the organs in jars in his bedroom. But it was all leading somewhere good. Dave Goulson is now an eminent ecologist and one of the country’s leading voices on insects, conservation, and what the hell we’re doing to the planet.

His new book is called Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse and the title says it all: it’s a grim warning about the threat that humans pose to insects (and ultimately to ourselves). Insects are disappearing, says Goulson, ant by ant, bee by bee, day by day, even though the world cannot function without them. They pollinate crops and wildflowers, they recycle dung and dead bodies, they keep the soil healthy and they control pests. They keep us alive. And yet it seems likely that they have declined by 75% in 50 years.

Goulson illustrated the scale of the problem when I visited him in his lab at Stirling University. He showed me a map of Britain on his computer. "This is where the great yellow bumblebee was found in the first half of the 20th century," he said, pointing to dots scattered across the map. He then switched to another map and suddenly there were only a few dots, mostly in the far north of Scotland. "And this is where the great yellow bumblebee is found now."

Sadly, the great yellow is just one example and, like the rest of us, Goulson has lived through what happened. He told me about growing up in Shropshire and how a two-mile walk from his house would mean crossing 15 fields, each bounded by a hedge. By his twenties, all the hedges had been ripped up and there was only one huge field sprayed with pesticides. It is this which has driven the decline, and in some cases the extinction, of insects.

Goulson doesn’t think it’s too late, yet, to save the situation, but he says action is needed now. Governments need to fund research into the decline of insects and improve the protection for rare species, which currently have absolutely no protection whatsoever. Farmers, councils, businesses, and retailers also need to change their behaviour and consider how it might affect insects.

But he also points out the other day-to-day things we can do, and say, to makes things better. For a start, fix your garden. Plant flowers, he says, and the butterflies will turn up. Every conservationist I have ever spoken to says we must also resist the urge to be tidy all the time, or put down slabs instead of flower beds, or (God help us) fake grass instead of real. Fill your garden with flowers. For the insects’ sake. And yours.

Secondly, have a word with your kids. My house is currently a haven for pholcus phalangioides, otherwise known as the daddy-long-legs spider, and I love watching them hanging upside down from the ceiling like trapeze artists. But when people come to stay, I often notice how repulsed they are by spiders, or wasps, or insects in general, and how they pass their fear and repulsion on to their children. Stop it. Tell your children how important insects are. Teach them to love the bugs.

And finally, change your behaviour – specifically, resist the urge to kill flies. I know they’re annoying and I know you worry about them landing on your jam just after they’ve landed on something less sweet, but I recommend you read the wonderful book by Stephen Buchman, The Reason for Flowers. Not only does Buchman write in the most beautiful way about plants, he points out that flies are the second most important pollinator after bees. Put away your swatter.

Together, these steps might seem pretty insignificant compared with the scale of the problem, but Goulson thinks it’s all part of changing our perspective which might, in turn, change our actions. Speaking to The Guardian this week, he said we need to realise that insects aren’t really revolting after all – they’re beautiful, clever, fascinating, mysterious and wonderful. And, most importantly, they have just as much right to be here as we do.

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