Against nature

SIR – Unless the calamitously wrongly motivated Natural England (Letters, May 9) is closed down, ground-nesting birds will be decimated.

From day one of this body’s existence it has recruited those motivated by a dislike of farmers and even greater dislike of landowners, especially those who encourage the traditional country sports.

It brought about a huge destruction of the small bird population by removing any control of predator hawks – buzzards and sparrowhawks in particular. Not satisfied with that, it actually reintroduced the red kite, which had been absent in England for 100 years, thus putting a nail in the coffin of ground-nesting birds such as lapwing and larks.

It then barefacedly blamed the decline in farm birds on modern farming methods, even though farmers in the past 16 years have added more than 10,000 miles of fresh hedging to the countryside.

Small mammals have suffered a similar fate from Natural England’s misguided interference with flood-defence work. Enforcement of unnecessary environmental-impact studies on routine maintenance work has resulted in nearly half the £800 million a year allocated being squandered. The result has been a massive increase in rivers overtopping and drowning millions of small mammals. R B Skepper

Woodbridge, Suffolk

SIR – I have just spent three days travelling south to north through rural France (off the motorway). The absence of birds in the crow family (corvids) was stunningly apparent.

What are French farmers doing that British farmers are not permitted to do? Or is it yet another example of EU directives being slavishly followed by the British and ignored by the French and other EU member states, to the extent that even their corvids migrate to the UK for a better life? Raymond Jones

Modbury, Devon