IT is common knowledge that Malvern Girls' College is involved with a school in The Gambia, a country that has suffered severe environmental degradation due to over grazing and other destructive forms of agricultural management. It therefore seems ironic the college should choose to destroy an area of herb-rich grassland using similarly heavy-handed tactics, just to protect its own interests (and, presumably, profits). Not a good example to set.

N J SUMMERFIELD, (formerly ecologist for the Exmoor National Park Authority), Tennyson Drive, Malvern.