The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.

Just as our skin is key to our well-being, the “skin” covering desert soils is essential to life in dry places. This “biocrust,” made up of fungi, lichens, mosses, blue-green algae, and other microbes, retains water and produces nutrients that other organisms can use. Now, new research shows climate change is destroying the integrity of this skin.

uge swarms of brown locusts have been an issue in three provinces since September 2021, leaving a trail of destruction in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape.

A new report has been released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the UN’s authority on climate change – which revealed the latest research on how the Earth is changing and what those changes will mean for the future.

Invasive, alien species are bad for ecosystems. They reduce bidoversity and disrupt food chains, including our own.

Climate change is coming like a freight train, or a rising tide.