In Mark Poynters wish for the good old days of impersonal abstract debate are laudable but as Post Modern philosophy has clearly shown us; truth is mediated by the networks of power relations and personal interests. Consequently it is naeve to debate technical issues without an exposure the former matters. Institutional reform often the first priority.

The forestry profession has been a pawn in the hands of commercial interests and /and or captured hierarchical organisational employment structures . The few "foresters" known to me critical of the status quo and willing to speak have been threatened with "you will never work again in this state".

The destruction of old growth forests and its sacrifice of the timber and the ruse the claim that fast grown industrial monocultures were adequate replacement in terms of quality timber and ecological services, is just one example. of the shell game played on the community.

The conventional wisdom of the industry is very much captured by the imperatives of the market place in the shorter term. There has been very little evidence in the public arena of forestry talking about strategy required to deliver the full range of ecological values the community value from forestry , like oxygen, clean and stable supplies of water from the forested catchments, preservation of biodiversity, carbon capture and landscape amenity.

Yes it could probably be argued that forest managers are not paid for these things but when have we heard forestry institutions arguing for market reform to address these deficiencies?

Yes Australian foresters did develop a quality assurance scheme, but failing to address the post modern requirement for self disclosure they failed to make it independently accountable on a triple bottom line basis.

Like the Tasmanian Forest Practices act Australian Certified Forest product ends up as another case of " the fox in charge of the chicken house".

When we see professional foresters disclosing personal material interests/vulnerabilities and industry organisations demanding independent auditing/supervision of practices and standards we will be happy to focus on debating the way in which the science is interpreted.