Opencast blight
SIR – Once again we see a report that biodiversity is in decline (“Biodiversity pledge is looking extinct”, Jan 19).
We should pay heed. Biodiversity and ecosystem services are the variety of living organisms and the fundamental life-support services provided by natural ecosystems, without which human civilisation would cease to thrive.
The RSPB notes that the cuckoo has declined by 52%. It would be far better if the opencast coal industry which similarly nests parasitically in our countryside had so declined.
Some 15 years ago they destroyed one of the jewels in the crown of Welsh wildlife, the beautiful Selar SSSI in the Neath Valley where the wild flowers grew so densely there was hardly any room for the grass.
Now Celtic Energy have launched another grab for our precious flower-laden Welsh Rhos pastures with an extension at Selar.
These could be obliterated and replaced with a restored landscape that is really just a grotesque plastic pastiche of real countryside.
NEIL JONES
Biodiversity Campaigner, Swansea Friends of the Earth