Letters: We must take a hard look at the spread of new forestry plantations

A tree which is established by nature, through self-seeding, will capture far more carbon in its lifetime than a tree which has been raised in a nursery and then planted on the open hillside. Spending public money on deer fencing and planting on Kinrara is an extraordinary way to spend our taxes when nature will provide the essential tree cover, for free. All that is needed is to stop burning the heather and reduce the overgrazing by red deer. Kinrara needs more stalkers, not fences.

Perhaps BrewDog, without realising it, has wandered into a situation which has the potential to do significant reputational damage. For decades there has been a cosy relationship between Government forestry officials and landowners, many of whom are keen to use forestry for grant and tax purposes. Most of these landowners also want to maintain very high deer numbers for recreational sporting enjoyment. As a consequence the natural regeneration and ecological recovery of native woodland, moorland and Arctic alpine vegetation is prevented. Even today few senior officials in Scottish Forestry are prepared to upset this apple cart so that, instead of insisting that deer numbers are reduced to levels that will allow regeneration to take place, they spend millions of pounds of our money every year in planting trees behind deer fences.

We would get far better value for this money if just a fraction was instead spent on the employment of more deer stalkers. Natural regeneration of native woodland across large tracts of the Highlands and elsewhere would result, delivering massive biodiversity and carbon capture benefits, as well as meeting Scottish Government re-afforestation targets, with ease.

Dave Morris, Kinross.

LET MEN SPEAK OUT

WE women know that its a man's world and that's why we need their help just now. You may think that the Scottish Government's Gender Recognition Bill is nothing to do with you but if you have mothers, sisters, daughters or nieces then you should be paying attention. It will mean that their safe, women-only spaces can be occupied by grown men who choose to say that they are women. This is a very threatening proposition for most women and a serious erosion of women's rights.

So all reasonable and free-thinking men should speak out and let politicians know that this proposal for gender self-identification is unacceptable and flawed to the majority of women.

Thanks for your help.

Elizabeth Crombie, Milngavie.

LESSONS WERE NOT LEARNED

I CAUGHT the headline in your "From our archives" section on Friday ("Council high-rises given all-clear after Grenfell Tower fire, The Herald, June 24").

I have just returned from a holiday in Madeira and, as some do, I was watching several of their TV channels.

One programme caught my attention. It was all about a multi-storey housing tower block in Melbourne, Australia, which went on fire. The fire spread rapidly because it was aggravated and spread by its cladding.

The programme then continued to indicate that this cladding material was comparable to that used on the Grenfell Tower block in London. It continued by defining the composite material. To my hearing, it sounded the same as at Grenfell Tower

Grenfell Tower was in 2017. This Melbourne fire was in 2014. As a technical professional, now retired, I thought one of our professional requirements was to learn from others as well as self-improvement.

John Taylor, Dunlop.

LENDING GAELIC A NEW LIFE

DOROTHY Dennis (Letters, June 20 & 23) is concerned that the Gaelic word bùrach as a loan-word in Scots has come to be spelt bourach. But surely she realises that Scots has adopted hundreds of Gaelic words over the centuries; and that the re-spelling of loan-words to represent their pronunciation by the orthographic conventions of the borrowing language is a universally familiar practice.

Fergusson’s poem is The Farmer’s Ingle, not inneal; Burns’s John Highlandman wore a philabeg, not a féileadh beag; the iconic sculptures near Falkirk are the Kelpies, not cailpeich. By the same token, Scots and English loan-words in Gaelic have been re-spelt; “winnock” giving uinneag, “causey” cabhsair, “college” colaiste, and so on.

I have to admit, however, that I am as irritated as she probably is by the illiterate spelling “skean dhu” for sgian dubh; the dh- being neither good English nor, in this context, good Gaelic.

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen.

• IAN Smith (Letters, June 23) makes the common mistake of associating independence and Gaidhlig. The "nonsense of the Gaelification of Scotland" was introduced by the Labour/Liberal Holyrood Government after 2001, not the SNP.

If most areas "never spoke or understood the language" of Gaidhlig/Brittonic (like Glaschu), what language does he think they spoke, Latin?

Dougie MacNicol, Glasgow.

SHELL-SHOCKED

YOUR report on a new scientific study (“Tortoises can slow down ageing process", The Herald June 24 ), has raised an issue which has occasionally troubled me since getting a tortoise in a paper bag in Glasgow’s “The Poly” 80 years ago, and finding it out for the count some weeks later.

Frisky was given a Christian burial. But was it dead or simply hibernating?

And could I still be taking it walkies in my old age?

R Russell Smith, Largs.