16 April, 2013

Forest peace rocked



Andrew Derby
The Age, April 16, 2013


Tasmania's forests peace deal is in doubt again after State Parliament's upper house voted against key elements on Tuesday.

The Legislative Council voted, with state government support, to postpone the creation of a set of 270,000 hectares of forest reserves fundamental to environmentalist signatories to the deal.

It also voted in favour of cutting out tracts of mountain country from a Word Heritage nomination already filed by the federal government.

Former national Greens leader Bob Brown said the council had put a chainsaw through the trunk of the forest agreement. "They are wreckers," Dr Brown tweeted.

Green and industry groups produced the peace deal as an attempt to end the state's generation-long forest wars.