Promoting observation, free range exploration, sense of place and citizen science, through the field notes of a naturalist.







Thursday 22 September 2011

The value of nature


On Ricky Tomlinson's recommendation I breezed into Farmfoods for a couple of pints of the white stuff and some wine gums. After wolfing down the sweeties I had cause to examine my change only to discovery the familiar profile of God himself Charles Darwin on a two pound coin. 

When presented with something a little different my first port of call is generally Ebay. Is it worth anything and could I flog it? To my surprise some people are forking out up to a fiver for this coin - kerching!  This then got me thinking of other coinage cast with images of our great natural heritage. Pulling out my man-draw full of part used batteries, screws and a ticket stub to a brilliant Dream Theater gig, I located that little plastic bag containing a Pontypool and Abersychan Co-operative Society bread token, assorted Edwardian pennies, a tanner (six-pence) complete with hole for attaching to ladies charm bracelet and to my glee a 1945 farthing with image of  Troglodytes troglodytes. With all this coinage along with a tradition of nice Royal Mail stamps and the back pages of UK passports all depicting images of British wildlife you'd think we'd feel some sense of pride and obligation to protecting it, but not a bit of it.


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