Rebugging the Planet: The Remarkable Things That Insects (and Other Invertebrates) Do and Why We Need to Love Them More

"This is a lovely little book that could and should have a big impact...Let’s all get rebugging right away!"—Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Meet the intelligent insects, marvelous minibeasts, and inspirational invertebrates that help shape our planet—and discover how you can help them help us by rebugging your attitude today!

Remember when there were bugs on your windshield? Ever wonder where they went? We need to act now if we are to help the insects survive. Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Attenborough, and Elizabeth Kolbert are but a few voices championing the rewilding of our world. Rebugging the Planet explains how we are headed toward “insectageddon” with a rate of insect extinction eight times faster than that of mammals or birds, and gives us crucial information to help all those essential creepy-crawlies flourish once more.

Author Vicki Hird passionately demonstrates how insects and invertebrates are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. They pollinate plants, feed birds, support and defend our food crops, and clean our water systems. They are also beautiful, inventive, and economically invaluable—bees, for example, contribute an estimated $235 to $577 billion to the US economy annually, according to Forbes.

Rebugging the Planet shows us small changes we can make to have a big impact on our littlest allies:
• Learn how to rewild parks, schools, sidewalks, roadsides, and other green spaces.
• Leave your garden to grow a little wild and plant weedkiller-free, wildlife-friendly plants.
• Take your kids on a minibeast treasure hunt and learn how to build bug palaces.
• Make bug-friendly choices with your food and support good farming practices
• Begin to understand how reducing inequality and poverty will help nature and wildlife too—it’s all connected.

So do your part and start rebugging today! The bees, ants, earthworms, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, ladybugs, snails, and slugs will thank you—and our planet will thank you too.

Vicki Hird is Head of the Sustainable Farming Campaign for Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food and Farming, and she also runs an independent consultancy. An experienced and award-winning environmental campaigner, researcher, writer and strategist working mainly in the food, farming and environmental policy arenas, Vicki has worked on government policy for many years and is the author of Perfectly Safe to Eat?: The Facts on Food.
Vicki’s passion is insects. The first pets she gave her children were a family of stick insects, and she received a giraffe-necked weevil tattoo for her 50th birthday. Vicki has a masters in pest management and is a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (FRES).