To the editor:

The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department has taken a step in recognizing their mistake and apologizing to “the community” for the recent herbicide debacle. I suspect that in their mind that community comprises the humans who care about the plants that were visibly harmed. As the three experts you quoted in the initial story about the incident noted, there are more efficient management methods for “invasive” species than the widespread spraying of powerful poison and its accompanying collateral damage. In addition to learning those methods, parks personnel and management might also learn to see the world differently. If you learn to see plants, animals, insects and the prairie itself as living entities, with their own feelings and rights, our community can be understood in a larger sense: the human and broader-than-human world together as one community. That might take us all to a better place.

Stuart Shafer,

Oskaloosa