The comment of this neighbour fits so well with the obsevation of the Canadian novelist and long-time bird watcher, Margaret Atwood: 'In the 70's and 80' and then the 90's....you could depend on the birds to be more or less where they were supposed to be, more or less when they were supposed to be there. Failures to see them were bad luck or lack of skill on your part: the birds themselves were surely just around the corner. If not this time, then next. But all that is changing, and it's changing very rapidly. The suddenness of the decline - not only in threatened species, but in relatively abundant ones.....is very worrying. No bird species can any longer be taken for granted.' (The Age, Saturday Features, 13/2/10).

Ms. Atwood's summation, and those of the neighbour, are arresting commentary on human-Earth relations, our relations with other species, and, by extension, how we should think about the future of our cities. Len's piece in fact goes on to caution against a too-ready adoption of higher-density agendas now being mooted in the name of promoting 'a major transformation of Australian cities' and accomodating massive population increases.

He draws strength in this conclusion from Thomas Berry's post-death collection of essays, 'The Sacred Universe - Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the Twenty-first Century' *. Berry says: 'The most basic issue of our time is human-Earth relations. We have disturbed the geological structure, the chemical composition, and the biological forms of the planet in a disastrous manner with our population explosion and technological power.' (p89). And further, in pointing to our loss of a sense of immediacy with the natural world, he says: 'Because we live in a man-made environment, the challenge is how to keep this immediacy with the natural world and to establish a traditional wisdom that deepens our understanding of the experience.' (p.147).

*For those interested to read Len's piece in full, it can be obtained by contacting the magazine,  'New Community Quarterly - Volume 7 no. 3 Spring 2009 - obtainable by 'phoning (03) 98193239. Thomas Berry's essays are edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker, a co-director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale, and is published by Columbia University Press, 2009.' Len's email address is moral@alphalink.com.au

See also Len's Age article on 18 March 2010, written with Peter Fisher,  "Rack 'em and stack 'em: a silly solution to population growth" at http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/rack-em-and-stack-em-a-silly-solution-to-population-growth-20100317-qfj2.html