Sir Jackie Stewart believes the lack of a top female Grand Prix driver has no link whatsoever with decades of grid-girl presence in F1.

Liberty Media kicked up a storm last week when it confirmed its decision to take the girls off the grid at Grand Prix events, because their presence was no longer in line with the values the sport wishes to embody going forward.

The move sparked a fiery debate in the media between progressive thinkers and traditionalists, with no side clearly emerging a winner.

Since the inception of the world championship in 1950, only a handful of women drivers have gained access to F1, with no meaningful results.

A state of affairs which historically has no link to gender discrimination, says Stewart.

"The idea that grid girls put off womenprioritize 'win–win' strategies — those that increase both forest stocks and timber harvest, through measures such as protecting trees from animals, or replacing dying or low-productivity forests (see 'Forest carbon cycle').

SOURCE: S. LUYSSAERT ET AL. GLOB. CHANGE BIOL. 16, 1429–1450 (2010)

Global drivers

So far, most discussions about the impact of climate change on forests have focused on the rising rate of locally devastating events such as forest fires, infestations, droughts and storms. The past decade saw 410 million cubic metres of wood felled in four major storms in Europe, a decade's worth of Amazonian carbon sequestration lost in severe droughts in 2005 and 2010, a record heat wave with forest fires affecting 23,000 square kilometres in Russia in 2010, and the bark beetle pandemic that has affected 130,000 square