Letter: Don't panic

MARK ROWE's article on the invitation of hunters to shoot boar fails to highlight the real shortcoming in British environmental control ("Hunters go on wild boar safari in darkest Dorset", 5 September).

No matter how many high-profile concerned individuals we have, the Third World will be unwilling to instigate measures to preserve biodiversity while we take the parochial attitude that occasional accidents involving wild boar are not to be tolerated. The British people need to lose their paranoia over boar and other species. Otherwise all the pontificating by Jonathan Porritt, Charles Windsor, David Bellamy, the BBC wildlife programmes et al, will be considered so much hot air by other nations with more pressing economic crises.

NICHOLAS HALES

Bath