THE destruction in the Wyre Forest by English Nature has seen 400-500 oaks cut down so far.

We know this because they are numbered and left lying at the side of the tracks, where wood merchants are loading them onto trailers and taking them away.

Oak is a very good cash crop at the moment, and all this is being done on the pretext of clearing and widening the pathways to preserve the area for the pearl bordered fritillary butterfly, whose caterpillars feed on violets.

The Wyre Forest is one of the few areas in the country where this butterfly is established.

I fear all the work that had been done previously to attract this beautiful butterfly has now been destroyed.

How many years before it gets back to how it was before this destruction?

It is strange that such violent clearing in the name of protecting one species' habitat will now damage the habitat of far more species, like the adder, birds such as the woodpecker, the dormouse and many more, and just before the Forestry Commission takes over next year.

D DICKINSON

Merton Close, Bewdley