Royal words resound with harmony

AS OUTDOOR folk and country motorists will have noticed, the density of wild flowers this summer is exceptional.

The weather, in general, has been good and the sea warm. We’ve had week after week of temperatures averaging 20 degrees, an ideal climate, as visitors from Spain and central London remind me.

On almost every day, there are some hours of bright sunshine, often followed by hazy evenings with my local bay sunset-red and the boats hanging between earth and heaven.

I’ve taken a hundred digital photographs and, I’m sure, haven’t achieved a single memorable shot. But it is impossible to resist, it’s so beautiful.

I see that HarperCollins is to publish an environmental book by Prince Charles. To be entitled Harmony, the theme is that humanity has become “dangerously disconnected” from nature and the balance must be restored.

It will also be published as a picture book for children. The prince is donating the advance fee and his share of the profits to charity. It will be in the bookshops next year

I have always had time for poor Charles. I believe he is a sincere man, much maligned. Born into an unenviable role – heir to a throne which has no purpose other than theatricals – and powerless to govern, he has nevertheless done his best to do something. “One must do something!” I hear him pronounce in the clipped accent of the Windsors, modestly avoiding the pluralis majestatis, the royal ‘we’. His concern is to warn us against an Armageddon on a planetary scale. On this subject, he has said: “In some of our actions we now behave as if we were masters of nature and, in others, as mere bystanders.

If we could rediscover that sense of harmony, that sense of being a part of – rather than apart from – nature, we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit at no cost.”

I couldn’t agree more and I’m sure his sentiments are shared by many readers. As the prince himself might say, “Heahr, heahr!”

Growth cannot be infinite on a finite planet. At this eleventh hour, we must manage our resources or debilitate beyond repair the very systems that underpin our survival, the soil, the water, the air. This is increasingly evident. It should have been evident much sooner. Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962.

Other princely pronouncements also show a man who has his heart in the right place. Some years ago, asked about his attitude toward excursions abroad on the royal yacht Britannia, he said, “I’d rather go by bus.”

On genetically modified organisms, Charles said, “We live in an age of rights. It seems to me it’s about time the Creator had some rights too.”

On his Tapestry Carpet of Thyme at Highgrove House, he commented, “I hope it will attract whole squadrons of butterflies and divisions of bees to feed upon the nectar and rise up like mobile flowers as people pass.”

This summer, I’ve been doing a weekly report on “mobile flowers” for the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, walking two 1.8km transects and noting what I see. I have no training in butterfly monitoring but it requires little experience and is a most enjoyable way to spend a few hours, while at the same time doing something useful.