Letter: Wildlife threat

AS IF conditions for our wild birds and animals are not difficult enough, whole areas of whins and other rough habitat are being destroyed on arable farms at the behest of bureaucrats who administer single farm payments (SFPs) to farmers.

Apparently, they have decreed that, in their current condition, such rough areas are no longer eligible for inclusion in the scheme. Indeed, their inclusion could result in the whole SFP application for the year being disallowed.

So the choice is clear; exclude those areas from the SFP application or bring them up to standard.

With a combination of technology which allows every square yard of the countryside to be examined from an office desk and SFPs (subsidies) of six-figure sums at stake, wildlife habitats on arable farms have been reduced on a drastic scale over the past few months.

The hush from the so-called "custodians of the countryside" is deafening.

Irvine Inglis

Reston

Berwickshire