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I know, insects, it's really weird,
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but bear with me.
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Now, I am an entomologist.
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I confess to that.
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And, when I look at the planet,
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the reason I'm an entomologist
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is because out of the 1.9 million species
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that are described on planet Earth,
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over 1 million of them are insects.
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And I truly believe as a scientist today
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we live in the best of times
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because here we are enjoying TED,
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and Facebook,
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and YouTube,
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and this wonderful theater,
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healthcare,
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longer life spans.
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But we also live in the worst of times
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because we are on a planet with 7 billion people
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with a lot of problems.
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And for those of us who look at biodiversity,
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it's a heart-wrenching and wonderful time all together
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because we see the links between nature and people,
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and we're losing them at the same time.
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Both honeybees and humans originate in East Africa.
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And, here in Kenya, a wonderful relationship exists
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where a bird called a honeyguide, up there,
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has this interesting phenomenon
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where it actually leads either humans,
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which it's done for thousands of years,
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77,000 year old paintings from Tanzania,
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and the honey badger
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to the wild honeybee colony.
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Now, for a long time we thought this relationship
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first evolved between the honeyguide
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and the honey badger.
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But it turns out that it actually evolved
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between the human and the honeyguide,
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and the badger's a parasite.
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Now, when we look at bees,
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there is this amazing diversity out there,
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20,000 species.
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And one in three bites of food that we eat
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is thanks to an insect pollinator.
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So one of the things I'm working on
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is looking at those links
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between nature and sustainable human life.
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And here are just a few of the beautiful bees
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that we have in Kenya,
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in fact, not far from Nairobi.
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Now, how many of you like coffee?
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Yeah, I actually can't drink it
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because if I do, my hands shake,
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and I can't pick up ants and bees.
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Chocolate?
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I love chocolate, the darker the better,
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so I really like chocolate.
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Now the thing is, without insect pollinators,
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there would be very little coffee
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and no chocolate on the planet.
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Could you imagine that?
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That's really scary!
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Now, I want to show you
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out of thousands of examples
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that I could have brought here today
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to show you how insects are connected to your life,
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to every single human being on the planet.
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Here are two colleagues and friends.
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Domina is a farmer in Mwanza
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in western Tanzania,
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and Peter is from the Kerio Valley
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in northwestern Kenya.
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Now, Domina grows pigeon feed, cow feed,
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a whole wide range of legumes.
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And she feeds her family,
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she survives in a very remote area
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based off of these amazing crops,
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legumes, a lot of traditional vegetables,
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and all of them are pollinated
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by these different wild bee species.
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Now, Peter grows five varieties of mango on his farm,
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and he actually paid for his education
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by growing and selling mangoes.
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And I really like mangoes
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and so it's really a great pleasure working on the farm
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with five different varieties of mango.
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And if you look at all these different fruits and crops here,
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one thing that connects us to biodiversity
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and one thing we do as a scientist,
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we write papers.
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We do research, and we write papers.
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Nobody ever reads them,
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but here's one of my papers.
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It's on the African violet.
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This is in the U.S.
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This florist sells about 10,000 dollars worth
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of violets a year.
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It's worth about 6 billion dollars in trade.
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It originates in East Africa,
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and we never knew what pollinated it.
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Well, I went off and studied this.
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One thing to say about pollinators
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is it comes done to being about sex.
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And how many of you like sex?
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Where are we, the Vatican?
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So what happens when insects help plants have sex
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is there's really good sex.
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This is an example of really good sex.
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So basically the bee comes along,
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it vibrates the flower
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at a specific frequency, 11 to 12 hertz,
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pollen is released,
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and the plant survives in the wild.
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This is one of the world's most endangered plants.
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We go up into the deserts of northern Kenya,
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which are now very famous
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because of the discovery of oil.
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But I will tell you a little different story.
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These animals, the camel,
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which allow life in this very remote community,
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are browsing off of a shrub called indigofera,
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and indigofera is 100% dependent on bee pollination.
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So all these wild bees produce the indigofera,
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which the camels and goats eat.
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And we look at a community like this,
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Nalaray, northern Samburu,
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and people will look at these children
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and say they are poor.
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And I disagree
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because over lunch we collected 30 different bee species
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in the Acacia where they had their lunch
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and 400 pollinator species in the Acacia tortilis
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where their classroom is located.
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So I want to leave you with a radical piece of technology
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called the bee hotel
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that you can innovate and build for yourself.
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Create a habitat where bees can nest and live
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in your own backyard.
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But more importantly, please create space
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in your hearts for insects.
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Spend five minutes a day with them if you can.
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And I believe that if the one lesson
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we can learn from insects
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is that meek shall inherit the Earth.