Thank you very much for the editorial. There are readers around and across the world who can measure the depth of an article. Thank you for being loyal to your profession as well as your country at the same time.

Anup Kaphle,
Westminster City Council, UK

. I am very touched by your editorial this week. I too truly believe that the trees shouldn't have been axed even though they may have caused problems at times along our streets. In a way, the planting of these trees in the 1990s had given a great ambience to the Nepali community and it is sad that they have been axed. I hope that greenery forever exists in our beautiful country and that they will continue to hold the soil and other components of the ground together.

Nripesh Dhungel,
New York

. I think your editorial was extremely good. At first, I was taken aback by the simplicity and irrelevance of the material, but I was forced to read between the lines. If I am thinking what you are thinking then this is an excellent piece of journalism. Well done and keep up the good work.

Buddha Shrestha,
email

. Once more the Nepali media has shown that it will rise up to the occasion and show that it will not be meek and compliant. When will the authorities realise that curbing information makes it worse for them because it spreads negative rumours, provokes panic and paranoia? And when they finally end up telling the truth no one will believe them. And what could be a more vivid example of shooting oneself in the foot than the fact that we in the outside world had no information from Nepal except from underground groups since the ban on Nepal-based websites also affected the government's own homepages!

Tashi Namgel, Seattle,
USA

. Your editorial on tree felling represented a welcome if perhaps involuntary change from the Nepali Times' tradition of outspoken political commentary. At a time when the only things that seem to be on people's minds are politics and conflict, it was refreshing to read about a real issue. My only quibble with your otherwise excellent piece was the somewhat contentious point about imported exotics, such as the poplar or the eucalyptus being less sturdy than indigenous varieties such as the Gorkhali tree. I don't entirely share that point of view. Indigenous varieties are often well adapted to the local environment, perhaps better so than imported exotics. But in the face of, for example, global climate change, indigenous varieties, precisely because they have evolved in highly specific environments, may prove less adaptable and less hardy than many exotic species. Cutting down such imported varieties, then, may be doubly shameful, particularly if the indigenous species prove themselves unable to adapt to a changing environment, and (in conformity with the Darwinian principle of natural selection) become extinct. Then we would have no trees left whatsoever in Kathmandu and that would be intolerable. A world without trees would be like living without order in our lives. Nonetheless, this minor difference between us should not be allowed to get in the way of a genuine meeting of minds. My hearty congratulations on reminding us that in the midst of our eventful daily lives, we should not be allowed to lose sight of the wood for the trees.

Purna Puri,
email