Recently you published a timely letter from Jan Salter and Neeta Pokhrel ('Tree huggers', #241). The following week you showed a photograph of the trees cut down in Baluwatar with the caption: 'The Slaughter Continues'. It is still continuing. This week I counted 21 mature trees cut down outside the Engineering Campus in Pulchok. My reaction has shifted from upset to outrage. I do however realise that there are issues of greater concern-all over Nepal people are being cut down.

In February this paper carried a celebrated editorial 'Hariyo ban Nepal ko dhan' (#233) providing much food for thought. Read on the most literal level it gives good reasons why trees that line the streets of Kathmandu (and Patan and the road to Bhaktapur) should not be decimated. Sundarial Bahuguna, of the Chipko Andolan stated: "The largest and most important product of the tree is not timber as we have been taught but soil, water and oxygen". Can anyone deny that Kathmandu needs more oxygen? Will no one raise their voice or take action before the city loses more of its beautiful, life-giving trees?

Ruth Foster,
Ekantakuna