Alarmism

The Herald has a scary headline:

Law changes could see open season on trees

This sounds very bad doesn’t it. And the opening paragraph:

Councils say they will not be able to stop people cutting down native bush and coastal pohutukawa in cities under planned changes to environment laws.

And this sounds even worse, It conjures up thoughts of scores of people maurading through cities choppng down native trees they don’t like. They even has this photo of a huge pohutukawa in a park.

But what is the law change really about. We see this in the third paragraph:

If the change goes ahead, landowners will be free to cut down any tree on their land unless it is listed in their council’s district plan.

So we have this misleading photo, headline and opening paragraph. What the law change is about is what citizens can do to the trees they own on the land they own.

A massive difference.