Green jobs in danger

Published: 20 January, 2011

• I AM dismayed to learn from a reliable source that Islington Council is planning to axe the jobs of a significant number of nature conservation staff at the Ecology Centre, including the biodiversity officer, as part of its response to the cuts in government grant.  

This drastic step sits very poorly with the claims made in the most recent State of the Environment report for 2009-10, when a number of positive initiatives in improving residents’ access to nature and to sites of conservation in wild areas, nature reserves and parkland were recorded.  

The council has for some time been in a position of leadership in this field, as it has been with other vital areas of environmental sustainability – all, it must be assumed, now under threat.  

Who is now going to implement the biodiversity action plan? The natural environment is a precious resource for all residents, and it is an example of gross shortsightedness to choose it as a soft target for government-imposed cuts.  

I hope everyone who cares about this issue will contact their councillors without delay, to protest at what may well prove to be but the start of an attack on the council’s previously high standards of environmental care.

JANE HOWARD
St John’s Villas, N19