Last updated 09:50, Friday, 03 October 2008

Hopefully Rebecca Willis read The Cumberland News last week and realises that the Lake District is going to change regardless of her predictions (‘As the storm clouds gather’, September 26).

The main heading I noticed, in the same edition, was; ‘Hill farmers could abandon the land within five years’. Does she not know that trees are the only way to save everyone from economic meltdown?

Not only do these trees store the very carbon dioxide that she claims is causing global warming, but the same trees could be the saviour for the upland farmers. Making the Lake District come alive with large areas of trees would also save the very soil that these farmers depended on for thousands of years.

They would prevent mass erosion, prevent large amounts of sediment reaching the lakes, be a main renewable energy source, enhance tourism and give work to hill men and their communities for years to come. Once the trees are established, the sheep could then return to grazing under them.

JOHN MILES
Geltsdale