Overgrazing by red deer on the Balmoral estate

SIR – It is good to know that senior royalty aim to attend the Cop26 climate conference, as Britain “pulls out all the stops” in battling climate change (report, October 11). The Prince of Wales has said: “The problem is to get action on the ground.”

Perhaps the Royal family could start this process on their own ground on the Balmoral estate. A report prepared for the Scottish government, published in January 2020, explained how Balmoral and its neighbours had some of the worst overgrazing by red deer in Scotland.

Nearly 20 years of voluntary control schemes have failed to reduce deer numbers to levels which allow the mountain and forest habitats to regenerate.

A better example needs to be set at Balmoral if senior royals are to have credible engagements with world leaders on climate change.

Dave Morris

Kinross

SIR – If we are keen for more biodiversity, we cannot simply let everything go. Nature needs to be managed.

We inherited a graveyard that, except for the grass being mown, had been left to nature. This meant only a few main plants taking over, with graves covered in brambles.

However, with careful management, we now have far more variety. We have cut the grass round the graves for robins, thrushes and blackbirds to get their worms, and planted mini wildflower meadows, which the bees absolutely adore, and many other kinds of wild plants in strategic areas.

Rosemary Westwell

Ely, Cambridgeshire

SIR – While I applaud the Royal Horticultural Society’s recommendation to dig up front drives and change them into gardens (report, September 13), I fear this coincides with the Government’s push for electric vehicles, meaning that surely the opposite will happen: people will lean towards having hard standing drives so that their cars can access an electrical point.

Perhaps it would be more helpful if the RHS recommended a type of garden that could accommodate this – for example, a gravel or alpine garden.

Clive Watt Groves

Bridport, Dorset