I was on Ben More Assynt a few days ago, in gorgeous weather and with great visibility.

From the summit there was a wonderful view of most of Sutherland, Caithness and Ross, and to the Western Isles and the Moray coast. I could also see three wind farms to the east.

I've been to several of the world's great mountain ranges, but I still tell people who don't know Scotland that it has some of the world's best mountain scenery. I can think of nowhere else that has such diverse and spectacular hills, retaining a sense of wilderness, in such a small area. All that is at risk from the drive to cover the landscape with enormous industrial turbines.

I'm reminded of the destruction of the peat bogs of Caithness in the 1980s. Wealthy investors were able to avoid tax by investing in great swathes of monotonous conifers; their desire to reduce their tax bills was seen as more important that a fragile habitat and its wildlife. Once again, some of Scotland's finest landscape is being violated in order to enrich developers and landowners. And, once again, the rest of us are paying for it, this time through subsidies. Do we never learn?

Doug Maughan,

52 Menteith View,

Dunblane.

So wind farms don't kill eagles, according to multi-millionaire financier Nicholas Oppenheim; and pigs might fly ("Financier hits out at eagle threat claim", The Herald, June 4).

Mr Oppenheim has blithely dismissed the RSPB's opinion that a planned development of 30 giant industrial wind turbines on his Eishken estate on the Isle of Lewis will have "a devastating impact on one of Europe's best sites for golden eagles". As far as Mr Oppenheim is concerned, the RSPB is a crackpot "trade union for birds", out of touch with the need for jobs that his development would deliver.

What nonsense. Advice on the environmental impact of turbine developments from key stakeholders such as the RSPB must not be summarily rejected as "scaremongering" just because it doesn't tally with the myth that wind farms will deliver a healthy economy based on renewables.

Wind farms only exist because of subsidies paid directly by consumers and they could not survive without them. According to Citigroup senior utilities analyst Peter Atherton, who gave evidence last week at the Scottish Parliament's renewables inquiry, the argument that Scotland's renewable energy drive is leading to sustainable jobs growth is without basis.

Mr Atherton pointed out the obvious: the billions of pounds pumped into renewables development are transferred straight from the pockets of consumers into those of foreign-owned energy companies and land owners such as Mr Oppenheim.

Just 10% of construction costs are spent in the UK, while only small numbers of staff are then recruited to operate and maintain these mostly automated sites. If we wanted to create jobs, a far better way would be to allow people to spend their hard-earned money on other things. Instead, rising bills paying for subsidies have driven 800,000 Scots into fuel poverty.

If planning permission is granted at Eishken the project will be worth £200 million. Perhaps if the financial stakes for landowners and developers in the ongoing renewables gold rush were not so high, the risks to Scotland's majestic golden eagles might not be so readily dismissed.

Struan Stevenson MEP,

Conservative Euro MP for Scotland,

Ballantrae, Ayrshire.

To justify GM crops by linking them to climate change, as Rog Wood has done, is disingenuous and ignores the problems in relation to GM foods ("GM crops at forefront of solution to climate change", The Herald, June 4).

A study has shown that one type of genetically modified corn brought onto the market in the late 1990s has had a gene inserted into it which produces a toxin called Bt toxin. This toxin causes the stomachs of certain insects to break open ingested, and the insect dies. Though the manufacturers were adamant it had no effect on mammals, doctors in a hospital in Quebec found Bt toxin in the blood of 93% of pregnant women tested, 80% of their babies and almost 70% of non-pregnant women.

According to the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM), several animal studies showed serious health risks from eating genetically modified foods including "infertility, immune dysfunction, accelerated ageing, irregular DNA, insulin instability and changes in liver, kidney, spleen and the gastrointestinal system".

The AAEM says there is a definite association between genetically modified foods and disease confirmed by several animal studies.

There is also the agricultural disaster of the southern states of the United States where super weeds are impervious to the weedkiller which was supposed to control them.

It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of the population is firmly against GM foods. The onus of proof of safety is 100% at the door of the GM manufacturers.

David Stubley,

22 Templeton Crescent, Prestwick.