In his critique of this site at www.spaceforum.co.uk/killing, Mr Macmillan repeats one of his earliest points about the use of weedkiller, that in destroying weeds it inevitably deprives many small creatures of food and shelter. This is in fact one reason why conservation organisations, unlike the average gardener or farmer, do not use weedkiller in the same area every growing season. To the best of my knowledge, the Woodland Trust's policy remains only to use broad-spectrum weedkiller in small areas round the bases of recently-planted saplings, to help them establish their root systems, after which the weedkiller application ceases. Specialised weedkillers are only used by the W.T. when particular invasive plants threaten to overwhelm a site (one of the most notable examples being the garden favourite Rhododendron ponticum which is not native to the U.K. and secretes poisons so that most local plants cannot grow near it, and most animals cannot eat it- it can also regrow from small fragments if uprooted, hence the need for weedkiller). The policy of short-term, limited-area use of weedkillers brings substantial long-term benefits, as a visit to any well-established Woodland Trust site will demonstrate, and even in the short term does not remove large amounts of valuable ground flora (as can be seen from the Bonney Doles pictures in this website).

Mr Macmillan, here and in many other aspects of his campaign advocates an "absolutist" approach to conservation, without giving any example of how such an approach works in reality. The techniques used by conservation landowners such as the Woodland Trust always try to achieve minimum damage now and maximum benefit in the long term.

Mr Macmillan also refers specifically to recent international reports of "superweeds" resistant to Glyphosate, the world's most common broad-spectrum weedkiller, which is used by the Woodland Trust. So what? That's how nature works. Having said that, the sort of short-term, small-area Glyphosate use practised by the W.T. is exactly the best way to avoid the emergence of such strains, because their evolutionary advantage only works where the weedkiller is being used.