The Dorset Wildlife Trust are, yet again, carrying out the systematic destruction of habitat on Winfrith Heath.

Since they purchased the heath, fenced it off and named it a nature reserve, they now arrive every year at this time with their chain saws to chop down and burn more gorse and silver birch in the mistaken belief that this is ‘scrub’ and invasive.

Gorse and silver birch are invasive in some parts of the country but the DWT are applying a national management plan to Winfrith Heath without any regard to whether this management is necessary there.

I have lived near the heath for over 40 years and walk round it on a regular basis.

In all this time the silver birch and gorse have not spread.

The birch might be a few feet taller but that is all.

The DWT’s removal of gorse is removing wildlife habitat, in particular of the Dartford warbler – a species they claim to want to protect.

I am a member of the DWT and have written to them voicing my concerns on more than one occasion but they do not even have the courtesy to send me an acknowledgement, no doubt putting me down as a crank.

But they should know that there are many others like me who view with dismay what is going on – some have even resigned their membership of the DWT in disgust.

We, who walk the heath regularly, know what we are likely to see and hear and our sightings are becoming fewer and farther between with every year that passes.

I would suggest that the enthusiasm for chopping and burning shown by the DWT is more down to justifying the ownership of expensive mechanical equipment than to a real interest in the protection of heathland and the wildlife.

Jane Pearson, Knoll Residential Park, Winfrith