A shocking number of birds are in trouble

Largely, my message is to prevent future extinctions if possible, and that means people stop building their homes as if humans live in a vacuum.

Second to that, our property is lined with previously unmaintained Golden Goddess bamboo (the clustering kind, not the invasive kind). I was originally going to remove it because frankly I'm not a fan of them, but I read an article about how bamboo provides much needed cover for birds that are migrating or traveling in general. I've started shaping the bamboo at about 8-9ft to incentivize lower tier growth and I regularly trim out dead shoots. This seems to have upped the number of birds who hang out in them when it's hot out, though I don't think they can nest in the bamboo. An added bonus is that dying bamboo fertilizes itself by dropping it's leaves at the base of the plant first, basically resulting in mulch.

I have ticks too, and they suck (pun intended). Beneficial nematodes right as spring turns will cut down their population immensely and does not result in harm to plants or wildlife. I've found they're incredibly hard to buy in stores, but easily available online. Beneficial nematodes will also chew through your mosquito population if you have those.

> thousand-acre mono-crop soybeans and wheat and corn fields that destroy habitats and flood the world with pesticides

https://ourworldindata.org/soy

More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/06/23/most-of-...

Less than half of the world’s grain harvest is eaten by people ... nearly half of all grain is either burned as fuel or eaten by animals. The ... second-biggest crop, maize, was even less likely to end up on a plate: humans ate just 13% of global output

Feeding grain to animals does generate food for people indirectly, in the form of milk, meat and eggs. However, this process is highly wasteful. For every 100 calories of grain fed to a cow, just three emerge as beef.

> Animals, on the other hand, tend to regenerate grasslands and restore wildlife habitats

https://ourworldindata.org/biodiversity

https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammal-decline

Thankfully we have options to build a better future. If we can reduce agricultural land – and primarily land use for livestock – we can free up land for wild mammals to return.

> If you really want to help fix the environment then you should consider not eating plant-based food.

https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too

Crop fields do indeed disrupt the habitats of wild animals, and wild animals are also killed when harvesting plants. However, this point makes the case for a plant-based diet and not against it, since many more plants are required to produce a measure of animal flesh for food (often as high as 12:1) than are required to produce an equal measure of plants for food (which is obviously 1:1). Because of this, a plant-based diet causes less suffering and death than one that includes animals.

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob...

Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, with agriculture alone being the identified threat to 24,000 of the 28,000 (86%) species at risk of extinction. The global rate of species extinction today is higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years.

Firsty, global dietary patterns need to move towards more plant-heavy diets, mainly due to the disproportionate impact of animal agriculture on biodiversity, land use and the environment. Such a shift, coupled with the reduction of global food waste, would reduce demand and the pressure on the environment and land, benefit the health of populations around the world, and help reduce the risk of pandemics.

Secondly, more land needs to be protected and set aside for nature.

Thirdly, we need to farm in a more nature-friendly, biodiversity-supporting way, limiting the use of inputs and replacing monoculture with polyculture farming practices.