This is a true story.
Ten groups of people who work in forests, use forest products, want to preserve forests sit down for 18 months and do the hard yards.
Discussing, debating and compromising to make a workable agreement.
The agreement goes to State and Federal Government to make it a reality.
State and Federal Government sign off on the agreement as it is presented.
There is a potential for forest protection and regional development funds as well as compensation for forestry families who have been hurt by the downturn in woodchip exports.
Enter the bad fairy – Forestry Tasmania was not part of the talks and she is determined to make her point known.
She publishes a 1 year list of coupes instead of 3 years, knowing this will put a spanner in the works for conservationists as roads will be pushed into areas to be assessed for high conservation value.
The bad fairy tells everyone that 99.5% of conservationists wishes have been met. But doesn’t reveal that the roads pushed in might well service other coupes later on – why else make the investment?
The bad fairy hopes really hard that the Independent Strategic Review due in February 2012 is kind or not released.
The ten groups of people who spent all that time and effort to make a difference really wish the bad fairy was a fairy tale.
