Britain played a crucial role in this liberation for which we are eternally grateful We thank the British people for our freedom. From Mr Faisal Al-Sabah Sir: On Tuesday, 17 January, we remember once more with gratitude the start of the international military campaign to liberate Kuwait. And the fact that we now all have so much to learn - and do - is our problem.Yours etc.Nick Mayhew London, NW512 January The writer is a former campaigns co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth. This should be seen as an act of international solidarity and an attempt to empower others rather than being branded by Richard North as "fundamentalist" and representative of gross "eco-colonialism".Of course Andrew was a romantic - but he was also profoundly aware of the tightrope of contradictions he was treading He was certainly no "purist" Perhaps Andrew's burden was that he had so much to give. This might have included the profound value of a particular ecosystem, or the assorted details and pleasures comprising the ways of life under threat, or the "facts" that the industry was trying to conceal from a wider world.Andrew went to Madagascar to record the views and perspectives of the local people, and to communicate to them Friends of the Earth's knowledge of the likely repercussions of a mining operation in their backyard. First, Richard Dowden largely couches the question of whether or not Rio Tinto Zinc should mine for titanium dioxide in Madagascar in terms of our consumer demand for the stuff (11 January), and then Richard North misrepresents much of what Andrew stood for, along with many of the key environmental issues that his work in Madagascar has raised ("Less forest but less poverty, too", 12 January). Andrew certainly saw the potential for getting us to "think globally" via a greater understanding of the origins of assorted commodities; he reckoned that such insights could, in turn, empower people to "act locally" in a well-targeted way. However, Andrew was also keenly conscious of the capacity of big corporations - especially through advertising, disingenuous PR and so on - to cover their tracks and mislead consumers, and thus to maintain an unsustainable demand for their products.Therefore Andrew had severe doubts about the efficacy of "green consumerism".

He was always far more interested in enabling people to "act locally" closer to home, where there was more at stake and where the people directly affected (by a particular industrial operation, say) had greater access to "the truth". However, Andrew would have been sorely troubled by some of your more recent reports. From Mr Nick Mayhew Sir: Your generous coverage of Andrew Lees's tragic death and his concerns in Madagascar has been very welcome His obituary (9 January) by Richard D. North was, I thought, particularly evocative of much that was so special about him. Offord County Planning and Environment Manager Northumberland County Council Morpeth, Northumberland 12 January. An alterna t ive has now been identified and will be democratically tested through the mineral local plan process and with a planning application to be submitted shortly.As the only body to come up with an effective solution to the problem, I feel that your article was remiss in not even mentioning the county council's role.Yours faithfully, C J. After some lengthy and fraught discussions, this was agreed late in 1993.

However, it is not inclined to pick up a bill of around £lm for a revocation.When all other avenues became exhausted, the county council proposed to Ready Mixed Concrete that an alternative site or sites to replace Druridge should be identified. The county council has tried long and hard to persuade central government to accept the responsibility for its previous decisions and to revoke the two permissions. Surely their comments are to be taken seriously? Is Ms Hunt pessimistic because so much attention is being focused on 550 families (1,000 individuals perhaps) who belong to the British False Memory Society and so little on the seven million people in Britain who have been abused (the NSPCC quotes the incidence of abuse as 1 in 8 of the population)?I recognise the possibility of false reporting and bad practice by ill- equipped "professionals" but let's hear about the good ones and the immense value of their work. Let's hear, too, about the perpetrators of abuse who are using notions of false memories to reinforce false denial of their guilty actions. Most of all, let's hear about the additional trauma all this is to those victims who have already suffered so much.Biased emphasis about ideas of false memories is delaying the healing of abusers and the abused alike.Yours faithfully, BETH DURHAM Nottingham 13 January. From Mr C J. Offord Sir: With reference to the article by David Nicholson-Lord about sand extraction at Druridge Bay, Northumberland ("Beautiful beach carted away for building sand", 3 January), Northumberland County Council is the mineral planning authority for the area and has made strenuous efforts to rid the bay of sand extraction.