Wednesday 17 May 2000

                                         We're doomed if we ignore nature
                                         says Prince
                                         By Robert Hardman

                                          

                          
                           The Prince of
                           Wales
                            
                           Reith Lectures
                           2000 - BBC
                            

                                         THE Prince of Wales will deliver a dire warning of the
                                         "disintegration of our overall environment" when he makes his
                                         contribution to this year's Reith Lectures on BBC Radio this
                                         evening.

                                         In his fiercest attack on the dangers of unrestrained scientific
                                         research and the perils of tampering with what he calls the "grain of
                                         nature", he says that a world which ignores the "essential unity" of the
                                         living and spiritual worlds is doomed.

                                         The Telegraph has seen extracts of the 2,300-word essay, which the
                                         Prince wrote during his recent pilgrimage to a remote Greek
                                         monastery. They continue many of the themes which he developed in
                                         his Millennium address on the BBC's Thought for the Day. But the
                                         uncompromising tone of tonight's analysis may prompt a further rift
                                         between St James's Palace and the Government, which continues to
                                         support genetically modified food.

                                         The Prince said: "If literally nothing is held sacred any more -
                                         because it is considered synonymous with superstition or in some
                                         other way 'irrational' - what is there to prevent us treating our entire
                                         world as some great laboratory of life with potentially disastrous
                                         long-term consequences?" He goes on to welcome a "precautionary
                                         approach" to scientific advances and mocks those who portray that as
                                         a sign of weakness or an attempt to block progress. "I believe it to be
                                         a sign of strength and wisdom."

                                         In a speech rich in quotes from sources as varied as Socrates,
                                         Bertrand Russell and the Astronomer Royal, he counsels against
                                         reducing the natural world to a mechanical process. "In this
                                         technology driven age, it is all too easy for us to forget that mankind
                                         is part of nature and not apart from it and that this is why we should
                                         seek to work with the grain of nature in everything we do."

                                         Science should be used to understand how nature works but not to
                                         change what it is, the Prince says. There would be "remarkable"
                                         results if a fraction of the time and money invested in genetically
                                         manipulated crops were spent on research into traditional farming
                                         methods.

                                         He concludes: "Only by rediscovering the essential unity and order
                                         of the living and spiritual world will we avoid the disintegration of
                                         our overall environment."