Remember when ecologists used to give a damn about birds and trees and stuff?

I do. When I was growing up, nature was something you appreciated for what it was. Something whose beauties you marvelled at and whose wonders you were taught to admire at school. You knew how to tell the difference between a smooth and a great crested newt; between a red admiral and a peacock; you studied the habitats of gall wasps; you counted worms; on nature walks you listened to the moan of doves in immemorial elms; you watched botany pwogwammes pwesented by a weally enthusiastic man...