SLOWLY the wheels of progress turn.
Sometimes, progress means revisiting the past.
The Green movement was behind stifling native vegetation rules which crucified landholders who dared cut down any trees.
However, there is a growing awareness that cutting down a tree is not necessarily evil.
Greens leader Christine Milne last week visited landholders from the Otway Agroforestry Network which plants trees for environmental benefit and profit.
Ms Milne said the group, as an "example of farmers working for both conservation and profit outcomes', was something she encouraged.
She said farmers were now "looking at the old ways of maintaining soil health" and their environment. Equally the Greens are becoming more familiar with farming, under the leadership of Ms Milne, a dairy farmer's daughter.
She is targeting country voters; some Greens policies identify farming challenges.
Perhaps the way to encourage farmers to invest in more envionmentally-beneficial work, would be to target things that make running viable farms hard such as stagnant farmgate prices, rising production and regulatory costs coupled with rising electricity prices and transport bills.
Meanwhile the Victorian Government has approved commercial timber harvesting in Mt Cole and Pyrenees Ranges state forest for the first time since 2004.
Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said the community was realising a "lock it up and leave it" was not working and "public estates need to be managed".
Another case of where everything old becomes suddenly new again.
