That's way the wind blows

The population of the Western Isles has been in freefall for the past 60 years, without any concern being shown by the British government or the Scottish business fraternity, and the erection of a huge wind farm on Lewis is not going to repopulate the island (Letters, 4 February).

Apart from employing a few maintenance fitters, the Lewis Wind Power Project will not provide much employment once the turbines have been erected.

The headquarters, administration and research will be based at AMEC's offices on Tyneside. The profits from the project will be skimmed off to shareholders, with little of the revenue remaining in Lewis.

While the population of the Western Isles has more or less halved since 1900, the population of Iceland, to our north, has increased fourfold. This is due to their government's protection of their fishing industry, now employing thousands.

DONALD J MacLEOD, Woodcroft Avenue, Bridge of Don, Aberdeenshire

Sadly, the attitude of the STUC and CBI to the Lewis wind farm (Letters, 4 February) once more clearly reflects the way the world is going. The demand from developers everywhere, whether for logging rainforests, opencast mining, draining wetlands for irrigation, driving roads through primeval forests, etc, is forcing wildlife into ever smaller areas. Ultimately, many species will disappear for ever.

The outlook is not good for the planet, but in this country, the least the government can do is to ensure special designated wildlife areas are given total protection.

FRANK HAMILTON, Campbell Road, Longniddry, East Lothian

It is not a very gratifying spectacle to see a rich, comfortable, Edinburgh-based, lobbying organisation such as the RSPB (Opinion, 6 February) use the riches at its disposal to try to prevent new jobs, new investment and new opportunities for the part of the country most in need of that investment.

If the RSPB believes the environment of the Outer Hebrides is of such quality, why doesn't it seek to invest here? Why does it have only one lonely soul employed in Lewis and Harris, and dozens upon dozens in the industrialised Central Belt? I suspect some in the RSPB are much happier making best use of the carbon-emitting facilities of the industrialised south, while delivering sanctimonious lectures to others. Ironically, their lectures and diatribes are aimed, in the main, at those in communities such as ours – the very ones that have looked after their environment.

ARCHIE CAMPBELL, Chairman of sustainable development, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar