Professor Waage [Neal Haddaway]

• WE are fortunate to have eminent ecologists like Professor Jeff Waage living in Kentish Town, to alert us to the wholly inadequate government response to the decline in nature.

As he pointed out (Seen any sparrows recently? December 1): “A growing number of species are at risk of extinction: a quarter of our British mammals, a third of amphibians. Bees and butterflies are down by 30 per cent.”

Without questioning Professor Waage’s statistics, I may have a small bit of good news. My garden feeder and tiny pool are regularly visited by sparrows (and blue tits) while I see starlings daily roosting on the flats opposite my house. So perhaps there are rays of hope in the gloom.

MARTIN PLAUT, NW5