mungoven,
an excellent account of the problems of 'noble cause corruption' (in it's various connotations) of science can be found in A. Kellow's Science and Public Policy. I hope you can find a copy in the Chifley Library, and do your part to maintain academic integrity and reputation.
fungoven

Cinders. Re your post of 11 November and your request that I comment on various forest sustainability documents, my apologies for not responding sooner - been too busy. I'm familiar with the documents you refer to and more, but they are of little relevance to my original point. Unfortunately, in Australia we cut down 37% of the forests between 1788 and 1980. Victoria topped the list by cutting 59%. See the report "State of the Forests 1998" available on DAFF's web site. Since 1980 we've continued to deforest Australia. If you look at the FAO's latest "State of the Worlds Forests 2007", you will see that between 1990 and 2000, we continued to cut down forests at the (net) rate of 326,000 hectares per year. While this has slowed down to 193,000 hectares a year between 2000 and 2005, Australia is still a noticeable entry on the list of countries worldwide that are reducing their forest cover. These FAO figures leave aside the reductions in open woodland areas. My point is, how can one possibly claim that our current management of forests is sustainable? The forestry profession should be far more concerned about this, particularly that we now understand the role of forests in global environment management.