In his new book “A Buzz in the Meadow,” British writer and biological sciences professor Dave Goulson describes his attempts to bring his 30-acre French farm back to a semi-natural state.
‘A Buzz in the Meadow: The Natural History of a French Farm’
by Dave Goulson
Picador, 288 pp., $25
When Scotland’s University of Stirling biological sciences professor Dave Goulson bought a farm of roughly 30 acres in France in 2003, his aim, he writes in his delightful and cautionary new book, was to create a wildlife sanctuary.
Essentially, he wanted to return the land from its years of destructive cultivation, fertilization and pesticides to an undisturbed meadow supporting as much biodiversity as possible, meaning not only birds and bees, but also amphibians, mammals, reptiles and, particularly, insects since “it is the little creatures that make the world go round.”
“A Buzz in the Meadow” follows Goulson’s 2013 book, “A Sting in the Tale,” which explored why bumblebees’ numbers are declining. There are many reasons, of course, including loss of habitat, pollution and harmful agricultural practices.
But his research suggested that restoring hedges and native plants, planting trees, letting some land go fallow, rotating crops, depending less on chemicals and more on insect predators all helped. The farm in France, then — since land in England was too expensive — was the lab where he set up a long-term experiment to test his theories.
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It’s an ongoing project, with the appearance of each new animal or plant cause for celebration among inevitable setbacks such as the mole that repeatedly destroyed a dam for a pond newts needed to breed in, a neighbor’s cows’ predations and seasonal swarms of flies his kids, “like the Spartans at Thermopylae,” slew heroically without making a “dent in the multitude.”
The book comprises three parts: first, a brief bestiary about mantises, flies, meadow brown butterflies, wasps, beetles and “true bugs” (hemiptera), meant to “inspire an appreciation for the smaller, everyday creatures.” Estimates are that 10 million trillion insects live at any one time on Earth and that although “we are seriously outnumbered,” we must take care these vast hordes don’t vanish. Why? He’ll get to that.
The second part explores plant/creature interaction, especially pollination, crucial to production of foods on which much of life depends.
Why we should nurture diversity begins to make sense when Goulson mentions the variety of pollinators he hopes the farm will attract. Not only bumblebees — of which there are more than a dozen species on his land — but honey bees, solitary bees (more than 50 species), butterflies, moths, beetles, hoverflies … but also bats, lizards, birds and mammals.
And each animal prefers to feast on individual favorites. Bees are attracted to yellow and purple, butterflies to pink and red, and moths to white; fields rich in colors and scents will entice more visitors and support more residents.
Goulson “intended [this book] as a wake-up call” so that we don’t continue “undermining the ability of our planet to support us.” His third section discusses the decline of bees, why chemicals should be a last resort and the frightening, not-yet-fully understood damaging effects of systemic pesticides.
His final chapter, “Easter Island,” is an overt allegory. A paradise when humans first settled there, it was soon denuded of trees, soil and plants; its wildlife was killed and eaten; its resources, squandered. On a larger scale, we’re doing the same thing today.
But solutions are obvious, Goulson thinks. Recycle everything. Make do with less. Create habitat islands. And he adds an encouraging Chinese proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”