Daniel Lak's column is always refreshing and is an asset to your weekly. However, his born-again discovery of a miracle medicinal herb as worth much "more than all the development esoterica" ('Revolution in Mustang', #149) is a frightening example of a journalist as an instant development expert. Cultivating Taxus and other specialised mountain plants with ready markets can be a good thing-but like the apples he disparages, they must be matched with the ecology, transport and market arrangements as critical, and a number of other so called esoteric factors-including gender-spell either success or disaster. In the case of Taxus, did Lak look into the many areas where it has failed? Or, as he obliquely notes, does cultivation serve as the guise for wholescale looting of natural sources?

Rattan Chand,
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