Monitoring moorland
We want as many people as possible to see and enjoy Hen Harriers (‘Look out for these majestic hen harriers’, Craven Herald, March 16) and we would like to make clear the position of moorland owners and managers.
Our members look after vast swathes of moorland, spending £52.5 million a year on protection and conservation. 
Wildlife enthusiasts flock to these spectacular uplands to see rare wildlife and species, that are in serious decline elsewhere, are doing well on land carefully managed for grouse shooting by gamekeepers.
The Moorland Association and gamekeepers are actively working with government and some of the country’s leading conservation organisations, including raptor specialists, on a range of initiatives including the Hen Harrier Joint Recovery Plan. 
Shooting organisations also work closely with police to bring to book those who engage in illegal raptor persecution and the declining number of incidents indicates progress.
We all look forward to the time when Hen Harriers are back on our moors in sustainable numbers, alongside driven grouse shooting.
AMANDA ANDERSON, DIRECTOR
The Moorland Association, Well Spring Barn, Austwick

Presumably, most readers of this newspaper would welcome the idea of a world where no country possessed or was trying to develop nuclear weapons of any kind.

Realistically, some readers will dismiss this as an impracticable dream and stick to the hoary old chestnut that if other countries have these mankind killing toys the UK should have them too.

However, whatever one’s stance, let us all be aware of a process of historic significance which begins on March 27th 2017.

If you are unaware of this you aren’t the only one; so far our national media has chosen to ignore it and our UK government seems to have chosen to take no part in it.  What is happening?

From March 27th to 31st and then again from June 15th to July 7th negotiations begin at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons, “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.”   It was the resolution at the UN General Assembly in December 2016 that set up these negotiations. 123 countries supported the move, including, strangely, North Korea.

The UK voted against it, along with other ‘usual suspects’, USA, France, Israel and Russia.  Why did the UK vote against it and why does it decline to attend or even observe the negotiations?  They say that they believe in a consensus-based approach; in my book a consensus is the result of a process in which parties meet and eventually reach agreement.

I invite readers to join me in wishing the negotiations well and in urging our UK government to take a more positive attitude to them, an important step on the long road to a world free of nuclear weapons.

Isn’t that something which we would all like to see?

Or are we being left only to imagine it?

RICHARD HARGREAVES (Grassington and District Peace Group) Hawkswick 

Re  ideas for blue bags.

I use mine to litter pick around our village. It’s much stronger than a black bag.

R A LAMBERT, Three Peaks, Ingleton