FOREST SERVICES

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17295, 5 November 1921, Page 12

FOREST SERVICES

PLANS FOR THE FUIURE. ximbeb and faem lands. (special to "the i>bess.") WELLINGTON, November 4. New Zealand forestry problems and proposals are disclosed in the annual report of the State Forest Sen-ice, which was presented to Parliament today. The year under review may be considered, in the words of the Director (Mr Macintosh Ellis), as the year of stocktaking, of orientation, and of study of the conditions and problems incidental to a eound and businesslike administration, and of the procedure and modus operandi necessary to forest management. The year end T ing March 31st, 1922, will be known as the year of establishment and application, while the year ending March 31st. 1923* may be known as the year of fruition and results. • After traversing many other topics, the report proceeds: It is obvious that the problem of assuring the present and future timber supplies of this Dominion must bo solved through the conservation and re-establishment of forests in the indigenous forest regions, and not chiefly by the artificial formation of exotic tree plantations. You are therefore recommended, sir, to secure the dedication of every available acre of Crown forest land as provisional State forest. Reasoned and conscious forest control will assure the fullest utilisation of the residual virgin supplies, and permit of a competent classification of the land, as to whether it is chiefly valuable for settlement or for forestry. It is recognised that- forests were made for men, and not men for forests, and the co-ordination therefore necessary between the settlers' (farmers) interests, and those of the millers and other users of forest products,, will be carefully balanced. The forest service is very much* alive to the call for more land for settlement, hence all forested lands, chiefly valuable for agriculture, will be milled first (other things 'being equal), and handed over to the Lands Department. There are several hundred thousand acres of Crown forest still unaubjected to competent forest administration: These, areas of undedioated and unalienated Crown forests, carrying many hundred millions of feet, are situated in North Auckland, Manukau Plateau, King; Country, Taranaki, the Urewera district, the ranges from Lake Taupo to Wellington, along the eastern slope of the Southern Alps, from the Wairau river headwaters southwards to Southland, the Catlins river County in Otago, and in certain parts of Nelaon and m-stland provinces. Success in securing efficient and economical results from. the application of forestry | to your State forests can only bo attained by unity, of cbntroll There must |be only one authority managing State forests. At present tfcoro nre_ several. You are recommended to secure the functioning of. one authority, and ..one only, and that is the State Forest Service, which is -the one instrument equipped to deal with forestry.' Continuity of policy is vital to the practice of forestry, and you are therefore recommended, sir, to secure the expression of your forest policy in a Forest Act, therebj crystallising a definite programme of State forestry action, at j least fpr>a working period ;of five to ten years; Your forest policy- and-pro-grnmme will only make such progress as is possible ny the operations of trained forest technicians. One year-has now l>een' lost, invprovidinp, educational facilities. You are advised, sir, to establish a 'School -of Forestry without delay. Two of the most important forest conservation regions, namoly, the Wellington region, which embraces Hawke's Bay,' Wellington, and Tarnnaki provinces, and the Nelson-Marlborough, region, which includes these - two provinces, are still without conservators of forests. The forest research and experimental programme is being sadly hampered through , lack of a trained forest investigator. You are advised to fill' these three posts at the* earliest possible opportunity, in-order that our constructive programme may.be kept in line with our, administrative activities. You are advised, sir, that the greatest enemy to successful forest management in New Zealand is firo. Until and unless this aroh enemy can be controlled, no forest plans are worth the paper they, are written on. You are recommended to: provide full and adequate pbwors-in. the Forest Act for the use of the forest service in. dealing with this serious and grave danger to New Zealand's forest heritage."