All roads lead to Rome, is an old saying, and it seems the answer to all questions of good government that are not being answered today, lead back to the High Court and its dysfunctional nature. The Forests question is simply another case of misguided scientific postulations, which cannot be tested properly in Australia since 1952.

Before 1952, there were two places where public policy could be tested, scientific theories tried and either found wanting or confirmed. One was in the Courts of Parliament, tainted by whoever can afford the experts and grab media headlines, and the need to be reelected every three years or so, and the calm cool headed confines if a Ch III court. I would thoroughly recommend the book State of Fear by Crichton, as an example of what can happen in a society when both review systems are still working.

I grew up on the Atherton Tablelands where there was a sustainable and world class rainforest logging industry, established on Crown Forests maintaining a sizable workforce of hard working and reasonably well paid workers. To appease city voters Graham Richardson came and closed off those forests by using the World Heritage Listing, of all State owned Forests. I know for a fact that in the old rainforest, the trees fell and rotted very occasionally, but in the logged forests smaller trees got light and soon grew tall and strong, and straight to make sustainable timber.

In Australia today there are no parallel review systems, and the only one that remains is nine dysfunctional Parliaments pumping out laws, often conflicting or downright destructive of the environment, and the people who live in it. The shame of February 7 2009, is on the head of the High Court for allowing the courts system to be replaced with Courts and Judges, and the cool calm environment for review they provided for the peace order and good government of the Commonwealth, by a Justice and a jury, taken from every Australian citizen.

The sins of a few are visited on the many. Don’t let the dead die in vain.

To Peter the Believer, keep your “head up” and be not disheartened. To quote from John Buchan - "You may have successes but never victories". Keep your courage, keep your cool, maintain your integrity and honesty, and remember, every little bit that you do will often have an effect, in ways you may never know. It is so painfully hard to have seen perfectly prosperous and sustainable industries, communities, families and businesses be “shot down” for shallow political gain. But remember, there's only so much "farm" they can sacrifice for green city votes and to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the clamouring lobby groups. Eventually they will need to start “cannibalizing their own”, and the tide will turn.

Victoria saw the consequences of rampant green strategy, as far as forestry goes, on Black Saturday in February 2009.

The sooner these ignorant green cretins are removed from all offices of authority and make room for real people, who understand the value of "management" of the environment the better

Whilst Moses lead the Jews out of the Wilderness, the maniacal false prophets of the Greens seem hell bent on leading Australia into the "Wilderness".

If tree is blown over at one of the ANU authors monitoring sites the dead carbon biomass is measured and added to the total above ground store of carbon. If that tree's identical twin is felled nearby and the wood used in a house or in furniture, the IPCC and the authors add the carbon to that emitted to the atmosphere by "deforestation". Anything to get the "right" answer.

I've never heard such garbage in my life. It simply demonstrates that to qualify as a "forester" one needs an IQ about then same as one's hatsize.

The bottom line is that Australia's forests - and particularly the eucalypts - have existed and done well for at least 8,000,000 years, as has the rest of the environment and natural ecology. In about 200 years self-serving morons like you and your lot have entirely fcuked up the whole system.

You've created drought where there NEVER used to be any, along with erosion problems that are a threat to the whole country, and rising salinity (which John Howard said was the biggest threat Australia faced, bar none). You've altered climates and reduced water-producing catchments (and artesian basins like South Gippsland) by over 40% with your bastardisation of a native forest into monocrops. You've destroyed countless native animals in the most barbaric way (and continue to to do so regularly in various ways - the permanent destruction of habitat being but one example). The enviro-vandalism caused by forest-destruction (including farming activities) has resulted in by far the greatest extinction of species anywhere in the world, and the contamination of both groundwater and near-offshore oceans.

I won't even begin on the carbon-emission question. The best thing about that is that it will help destroy the bastards who are destroying our essential public forests for their own personal gain. The sooner your breed is driven to extinction the better off the rest of the world will be.