GOLD DREDGING COMPANY FINED

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23263, 25 February 1941, Page 10

GOLD DREDGING COMPANY FINED

♦ TREES FELLED IN STATE FOREST [From Our Own Reporter.] GREYMOUTH, February 24. In the Magistrate’s Court the Nemona Gold Dredging Company was fined a total of £6O on two charges of felling trees in a provisional State forest near Marsden without authority. The company was also ordered to pay the value of the timber, £69 7s. The hearing of the case had begun last Monday. The Conservator of Forests, for whom Mr F. A. Kitchingham appeared, charged the Nemona Gold Dredging Company: (1) that between October 1,. 1937, and March 31, 1938, at Cockeye Creek, near Marsden, it without lawful- authority felled or destroyed kahikatea trees containing 38,180 feet board measure on provisional Slate forest 1605, (2) that between March 2 and June 13, 1940, at Cockeye Creek, without lawful authority, it felled or destroyed three kahikatea and seven matai trees, containing 6520 feet (board measure) on provisional State Forest 1605. Mr J. W. Hannan, for the company, entered a formal plea of not guilty. The Magistrate (Mr G. G. Chisholm) after hearing evidence, said that it did not appear to him that he would be justified in imposing the additional penalty of double royalty, but he must impose a fine so as to emphasise the necessity of complying with the Forestry Act.