LESSON OF THE FLOODS

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 8

LESSON OF THE FLOODS

It is the same old lesson, but it must be dinned into New Zealanders' heads again and again. The Government, local bodies and private landowners are all equally to blame. The same old object lesson —the senseless deforestation of the high country and the river banks, the too-quick runoff of rainfall, and the consequent flooding, of the low country, with disastrous effects on river channels, bridges and cultivations and other property. The recent floods which caused thousands of pounds' worth of damage in the, Hutt Valley and at Otaki and parts of the Wairarapa country were the result of not jnore than one day's heavy rain in the southern Tararua Ranges. Wellington City was temporarily cut off from the rest of the country in rail and road communication. What a week's downfall would have done may be imagined. The Hutt Valley would have been rendered uninhabitable. These floods are likely to become more serious unless t'he trouble' is attacked where it begins, in the hills. Stopbanks and other precautions in the closely-settled valleys are only, in effect, mopping up the bucketful of water after it has been spilled. The destruction of the saving forests is at the. root of it all. And the destruction still goes on. Wellington is uot the only place which is intimately concerned. In many parts of the Auckland Province the alternate floods and periods of scarcity of water are the direct result of bush ruination on the mountains and steep ridges. Provincial towns are likely to be affected more and more by the stripping of the covering of the native forest,- from the soil, the forest of thick and jungly undergrowth which conserves and regulates the waterflow. Two once-densely forested ranges may be mentioned as examples—Mount Pirongia, that beautiful range which forms the watershed between the Waipa Valley, and Kawhia Harbour, and Maungatautari, above the Upper Waikato. Towns are dependent on these and adjacent ranges for their water supply, and those natural reservoirs will become increasingly important with the spread of settlement. But still the destruction of forest goes on. What reserves there are are quite inadequate and so far from the felling and burning being permitted the whole of the mountains should be reforested for the needs of the future.

Reverting to the Hutt, Wellington's garden suburb, or series of suburbs, the story of a river run wild through human mismanagement is there plainly, to be read by everyone who travels along the valley. The stripping of the bush from the banks and from the watershed converted a once navigable comparatively narrow and deep channel into a wide-bedded shallow river, periodically changing its course as the increasing load of silt and gravel from the hills raised its original bed. This, of course, is no new thing; it has been going on ever since white settlers first entered the Hutt Valley. Now a certain forest-sense is developing and large reserves for water supply and scenic protection have been made around the river sources. It is realised, too, that deer and goats are destructive to forest growth. But some people have yet everything to learn. Amazing as it may seem, the authorities who control some of the forests which still clothe Wellington's water-source heights are permitting timber milling in the people's reserves, fpr the sake of a few hundred pounds of annual revenue. Auckland's water-guardians happily display more foresight. —J-C.