SETTLEMENT V. FORESTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 18, 22 January 1929, Page 6

SETTLEMENT V. FORESTRY.

A petition has been circulated among settlers in the Waikoukou Valley protesting against the inclusion of a considerable area of land fit for settlement in the Riverhead Forestry Reserve. At the same titne, the Hauraki Plains County Council has passed a resolution -asking the Minister of Lands to defer the reservation of certain areas of land on the Coromandel Peninsula for afforestation purposes, on the ground that the land in question is well adapted for winter grazing. Both these cases will no doubt be considered by Mr. Forbes on their merits. In the meantime it seems necessary to observe that this supposed conflict between the claims of Farming and Forestry is a controversy of old standing. Unfortunately, the case for Forestry has usually gone by default, to the lasting loss add injury of the whole country. Literally millions of acres of bush have been destroyed on rough and broken country which could never, either for agricultural or pastoral purposes, produce anything so valuable as its original timber growth. And the result has been not only loss of timber and shelter, and the diminution of the water supply, but erosion of the soil and the constant recurrence o£ destructive and dangerous floods. It is to be hoped that the Minister in Charge 'will not forget these vitally important facts in considering an#««£*§ pt ft® . ... '