How long I wonder will these fields remain arablel? Another ‘Earth Day’ has been and gone and the platitudes continue – we must this, we must that… but all around me here housing estates are encroaching on fields. There are government house building targets to meet the needs of population (300, 000 in 2019) and the infrastructure that goes with it is just as destructive. Railways and roads carving up ancient woodland and habitats. The indigestible question is how much human population can the earth bear before this

becomes this…

"Just like as in a nest of boxes round,
Degrees of sizes in each box are found.
So, in this world, may many others be
Thinner and less, and less still by degree …"  

So wrote Margaret Cavendish in the 17th century about the marvel of minutia of life on earth though it can be read today with another slant. Thinner and less, and less still by degree. Indeed!