Despite that, and with some judicious cherrypicking, we can learn from others or at least give a better context to how we deal with various issues.

Over recent days two examples, albeit faraway ones, stand in stark contrast to our indifference to environmental protection.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, a figure less admirable than he imagines, closed his country’s best-known holiday island Boracay because the white-sand resort has become a “cesspool” tainted by sewage.

What prospect might there be, even allowing for all the contradictions, that the same sort of veto be applied to one of the nearly 50 towns still pumping sewage into our watercourses?

Yesterday, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was jailed for five years for shooting a protected antelope.

Here such a crime by a comparable figure, if it got to court, might result in a pin-money fine that would not cover the State’s costs.