and nature leads to misguided “conservation”

strategies, not protecting habitats and

environments from destruction, but instead

protecting individual insects and plants from

collection and study, which ironically makes

nature less relevant to the population, and

therefore more at risk in the long term. Veteran

broadcaster and conservationist Sir David

Attenborough has spoken out against this

tendency in the British newspapers, stating,

“Children are being denied the chance to learn

one of the key ‘foundation stones’ of science [that

is, taxonomy] because of laws that prevent them

from collecting wild flowers, insects, and fossils.”

His powerful words will hopefully help children

to develop an interest in and desire to protect the

natural world around us.

and Italy, in the mid-late twentieth century, and in

eastern Asia, initially Japan and later Korea, China,

and Taiwan in the later twentieth century to today.

The integration of entomology into popular

culture is impeded by urbanization and the loss

of convenient access to natural habitats, effectively

forcing physical separation of people from nature.

Japanese game designer Satoshi Tajiri, creator of

the Pokémon games franchise, was an enthusiastic

insect collector as a boy, and observed that as

urban areas spread and land was paved over,

habitats where he hunted insects were lost.

Tajiri has said that he wanted his games to allow

children to “have the feeling of catching and

collecting creatures as he had.” Pokémon has

become an international and cross-generational

sensation, and Japan still produces many amateur

and professional entomologists as well.

Another threat to entomology in popular

culture is when the disconnect between people

right | Sir David

Attenborough, here

with an African Goliath

Beetle, has helped to

enthuse children and

adults about nature,

including beetles.