Openly flexible

Whatever the merits of open-access journals ("Put all the results out in the open", 12 November), the current system is by no means inflexible. Some colleagues and I have a paper featured in the latest issue of Current Biology. It concludes that the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme, to be discussed at the Copenhagen climate change conference next month, needs rules to safeguard against any unintended deleterious effects on biodiversity. Because of its potential to inform the policy process, we were gratified when the editor informed us that our paper would be open access for the first few months.

Alan Grainger, School of Geography, University of Leeds.