Mary's Letter

Anyone,

I really admire those who try to be optimistic about the future of the natural world and it is true that a dedicated band of naturalists and enthusiasts are helping some species to recover and saving some green spaces, but in the big picture, I despair of the political greed and stupidity—both local and national—which is not just stifling recovery but actively working against it.
It starts right at the top. Look at Rishi Sunak’s list of his 5 top priorities, yet the environment and/or natural world didn’t even make it on there. Everything else he put there won’t matter a jot if the natural world is trashed—there will be no growth, no food. Not even any migrants if we and they have all been swamped by a tsunami, obliterated by a nuclear bomb or wiped out by another virus. He seems well-intentioned but he’s blind to what really matters and has inexcusably and cynically backtracked on multiple valuable environmental and animal laws (e.g. the Kept Animals Bill) on which Boris Johnson won his landslide electoral victory such a short time ago. The Conservatives are a back-biting, back tracking disgrace and Labour is no better. Keir Starmer wants to build on more green belt land (despite ALL environmentalists have said about habitat protection and green corridors) and make it easier to compulsorily purchase land. He has no idea. They are more interested in discrediting each other and winning votes in the short term than actually doing any good.
I feel bereft for nature and the natural world and the accumulative suffering, but I can’t see a way out because of the nature of humanity. There are too many of us who are selfish and short sighted, others who are cruel and greedy. There are also too many others—probably the majority—who are indifferent until they are directly affected by something. We also reproduce at ‘pest’ levels and were we any other species, would be exterminated as pests. It takes some nerve for such a species to regard itself as superior to all others, yet that is the official stance.
A principle problem is the increasingly ambitious development sector which wants to build often unnecessary projects (e.g. a glut of retirement villages) simply because they are profitable. They don’t care that there are numerous other such developments which can’t fill the spaces. Look at the unforgivably stupid and greedy, largely faceless morons behind HS2, the Oxford Cambridge Arc (who were forced to change the name of the project when their plans became irredeemably toxic). They didn’t abandon the project, just changed the name as if we might not notice. One wouldn’t believe they could get away with it, but somehow they attempt to carry it off. I could go on, but you get the picture.
I would love to be wrong and say that right will win, but those on the side of nature are a sidelined voice of reason.