FOLLOWING your report on the clearance of trees and widening of rides in the Forest of Wyre, by English Nature, for the survival of rare butterflies, I can only conclude after seeing the wholesale destruction of acres of mature oaks that they must have the healthiest colonies of butterflies in the country if they need all that space to fly around in. In which case it is totally unnecessary.

Every year English Nature cuts down and clears areas of established oak trees in the name of conservation instead of regulated thinning as has been traditional, but the sites simply become overgrown with bracken, killing all vegetation underneath. And they then repeat the process the next year, in a different area.

The destruction in Town Coppice this year, of hundreds of mature oak trees and possibly the only sweet chestnut in the forest, has to be seen to be believed.

How can English Nature, charged with preserving the oak woods, be responsible for such wanton damage to our established woodlands when they proclaim at the entrance to the forest that Wyre is one of the last remaining oak forests in England? What will they look like in five years time?

I have known these woods for over 60 years and they are being hacked to pieces by the very people who should be looking after them.

F BATEMAN, Far Forest