Nature cannot survive human selfishness

Sir, – The discussion about leaving grass to grow or not is missing the point. Insects live on wildflowers. In Europe insect numbers are down more than 60% in 10 years.

Birds live by eating insects and seeds. When the insects and wild seeds go, birds don’t breed. They become endangered. The survivors have domestic cats to contend with.

British mammals are almost gone. When did you last see a hedgehog? Wildcats, stoats and weasels are rare. Water voles and red squirrels endangered.

Humans have evolved over about two million years alongside the plant. insect. bird and mammal life around us.

The ‘around’ us part has almost disappeared.

The same is happening in our oceans.

Around the coastal bays and sea lochs of Scotland sea grass has all but gone and sea kelp will follow. The fish and sea creatures are fast losing their habitat.

We don’t need wildflowers and wavy grass in our parks just because they are pretty.

We need them there to help keep nature alive.

We need nature because we are part of it.

Two million years ago as humans first lived and moved about they were a minority mammal.

In a biomass study published in May 2018, it was reported that 96% of all mammals on earth are humans, food for humans or pets for humans. Seventy per cent of birds now on earth are farmed poultry. We seem to think every square inch of the land around us and the creatures on it are for us alone.

I think we will find out that is a very big mistake.

Nature cannot survive our selfishness. And we are not prepared to leave a few small patches of wild in our parks. Shame on us.

We have recently been reminded that Dundee is a city built on industrialisation, fossil fuels, exploitation of both nature and humans (see recent Courier article about Dundee’s trade in linen clothes for slaves).

It really is time to give back just a tiny little bit as recompense for the whales, the jute farmers, the slave trade.

In my opinion it is not our vast numbers that are the problem, but our boundless selfishness and greed.

We have the chance in Dundee to make a tiny contribution to the global catastrophic biodiversity loss which is driving the climate emergency, melting ice caps and burning forests.

All too soon there will be no safe space at Magdalen Yard Green.

It will be reclaimed by rising sea levels.

Leslie Martin. 22 Glenmarkie Terrace, Dundee.