Learn to live with the planet

Presumably people write under the auspices of a Chamber of Commerce advert (Peninsula Mainstreet) because they think it will have greater impact and importance in the eyes of the reader.

It must be remembered that this Chamber is in reality a union of small business people, or it could be said to be a lobby group with money to spend on its message.

Membership does not endow greater knowledge nor should it give greater power.

After all, we are said to be a free and open society.

It is the currents which have removed the sand from the beach at Ettalong.

It has all been swept around the point to Booker Bay.

If Ms Wales should venture out onto the beach in front of the club, she would discover quite a lot of spinifex, one of the pioneer species which binds the sand together.

There are a few blow outs, signs of a dune under stress but if the native vegetation is removed from the higher part of the dune, the club development may find itself being sandblasted like the houses and shop opposite the sea wall.

That wall was put in no doubt by a well-intentioned Council which said it was doing it for the good of the people.

It has proved a disaster.

The Chamber of Commerce may be able to persuade the new Council to follow its suggestions but in the end it will prove a similar failure.

All of us must learn to live with the planet as it is and not presume that money gives us supernatural powers.

Margaret Lund, Woy Woy