From India Hamilton.
IN response to the letter entitled ‘We must keep the money at home’ (JEP, 21 January), I am sure each and every Jersey resident and wildlife conservationalist is saddened by the financial, hopefully reversible, situation of the Durrell Conservation Trust.
But to deny the people of Haiti support from one the world’s most financially successful islands in one of the gravest of tragedies, based on its location, is shameful.
Although we do not sit in close proximity to any known fault lines, we do sit in close proximity to the world’s largest nuclear reprocessing plant and being an Island (like Haiti) even a small accident there might put our survival entirely in the hands of outsiders prepared to make sacrifices to come and help us.
Sadly the letter smacks of that outmoded ‘charity begins at home’ ethos. Fortunately, despite the very poor shape of the world financial economy, there is a separate and sacrosanct human economy in the civilised world which relies upon reaching out to help others in desperate need. The times for this are set by fate and natural disaster, not by financial planners.
Furthermore, if Gerald Durrell believed in the sentiment ‘we must keep the money at home’ our world famous wildlife trust would only have a few crapauds, Jersey lizards and a hedgehog.
Thank goodness not all Islanders are devoid of compassion and basic humanity and that Jersey’s record for helping others (including endangered animals), both locally and internationally, is so good.
