HOW heartbreaking for Steve Micklewright that Brexit is causing difficulties for his plan to make an area of Scotland “the size of a small country” into a preserve for trees and animals (May 9).

Not a total preserve, of course. He’ll have a use for a handful of human helpers. Will they include the native human species?

If so, how jolly decent and British of him to allow us the same status as trees and animals. No thought of re-peopling beyond that, of any significant (native) human population at all.

This reminds me of how David Bellamy, another Englishman who thought Scotland was just there for his pet project, tried to turn Islay into a botanical garden, with no consciousness of or concern about the people living there.

Both of these gentlemen remind me of a remark made about “Wasps” by Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street: “Love animals, hate people”.

Ian McQueen

Dumfries