Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Reading Stephen Goodwin's article on the Lake District National Park's plan to fell the Rusland beeches (7 October) I am driven to wonder how much "expert" opinion is based on scientific analysis, and how much on traditional prejudice against supposedly decaying trees.
The beeches, we are told, are in a "dangerous" condition. Has this danger been quantified? Certainly an old tree might shed a branch, but the statistical chance of it doing so at the very moment someone is passing under the very spot the branch falls must be remote in the extreme. Have the park authorities a mathematical estimate of the chances of it happening?
Is it feared that a whole tree might topple over? Again, even if one did, the chance of it hitting someone as it fell must be very small, especially compared with the many small everyday risks we are all compelled to take.
Old, decaying, trees don't fall over, they just continue decaying away, over decades, to a bare trunk that rots on the spot. Trees that blow over in storms are almost invariably ones that showed no prior signs of age or weakness, as many people in the South-east will recall from the 1986 "hurricane".
C PADLEY
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments