I RECENTLY returned from overseas visiting many towns and villages in Holland and France in particular.

Invariably, entering these towns one is met with avenues of healthy trees, the nature strips and grassed areas neatly trimmed, planted up roundabouts; what a pleasure to visit these places.

Arriving back to Canberra, what a sad sight as one enters the nation’s capital – no beautiful avenues of trees, the Federal Highway joining Northbourne Avenue with overgrown, knee-high grass along the median strip, overgrown edges, graffiti along the back fences of Downer facing our principal entry into the city.

Then I look at the next most important entry point into the city, from the airport along Parkes Way where the original plantings of only a couple of years ago are disappearing in waist-high weeds.

The other entry, Fairbairn Avenue with its ornamental grasses planted on top of the stone walls are now 90 per cent dead!

Even in Civic, there are empty squares of gravel where trees have died and never been replaced. What sad and depressing sights for the visitors, let alone us residents. Did I hear someone describe this as a garden city?

Cedric Bryant, Watson

PS Now back nearly three weeks and the grass on the road past the showground is getting higher and drier; with rising temperatures, have we learnt nothing from fires in the past?

Credit to Stanhope

I ENJOYED Jon Stanhope’s reflections on Sandakan and the Cocos Islands (CN, November 12). Having been to Sabah and also Changi in Singapore they are genuinely moving places.

I was unaware of the fate of the Emden sailors, I had assumed they would have been respectfully buried and their graves maintained. Seeing the contrast with the arrangements at Cowra for Japanese POWs is stark. I am surprised that the German government is not active in maintaining its sailors’ graves, but it would be worthwhile for Australia to take some initiative. I have a relative buried in a faraway land, in his case the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is responsible.

Someone needs to act on this issue; credit to you, Jon, for pointing it out.

Martin Gordon, Flynn

Hep C claims challenged

I READ with interest the comments from Colliss Parrett (letters, CN, November 10) regarding hepatitis C transmission.

He claims that that providing sterile needles and syringes has contributed to increasing hepatitis C infections.

In fact, although hepatitis C prevalence (total number with hepatitis C) may appear to be increasing, the incidence (number of people becoming hepatitis C positive) is decreasing (Kirby Institute 2013).

That means that each year less people become hep C positive. This indicates that harm reduction and hepatitis C prevention (including, but not limited to, needle and syringe programs) has a positive impact.

As long as humans feel the need to take drugs and alcohol, we require a realistic response that includes treatment options and harm reduction to keep people alive long enough to access treatment. This is accepted by the WHO, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNAIDS, the Commonwealth of Australia and many more agencies and experts.

Needle programs save lives. HIV and hepatitis C can lead to serious illness and death.

Certainly, I would prefer it if more than the estimated 130,000 cases of hepatitis C were prevented in the years 1999-2009. One of the ways to do this is to provide a regulated program in the AMC. I believe this would in fact be safer for staff and detainees than the current unregulated program which exists at present.

Sione Crawford, manager, Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy (CAHMA), Curtin