Nature and nurture

Our schools can—and must—lead the way in teaching the next generation the incalculable value of the natural world, contends Roger Morgan-Grenville

- By Roger Morgan-Grenville

CHAIRMAN MAO found out the hard way that Nature is not merely a 'nice to have', but the very life force on which our species depends for its survival. Having ordered the extermination of half a billion tree sparrows on the basis that they ate the grain destined for humans, it turned out that they actually ate the locust nymphs and aphids that ate the grain and 40 million people died in the resulting famine. We cannot even begin to imagine what happens when ecosystems start to crumble and we need our children to understand this, even if we don't.