LITTLE WORK AT WAIPOUA

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25551, 20 July 1948, Page 4

LITTLE WORK AT WAIPOUA

GOVERNMENT’S DECISION AWAITED "The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, July 19. Work in the Waipoua kauri forest is virtually at a standstill pending a decision by the Government on the future use of the area. The report of the Parliamentary Select Committee is expected to be presented to Parliament within the next few weeks. Apart from normal administrative services, only one man is employed in the indigenous part of the forest, according to the officer in charge at Waipoua, Mr A. M. Moore. This man is cutting posts and poles from head legs and timber already felled that is not marketable. The poles are being used for telephone lines within the forest and the posts mainly on farms for former servicemen.

“All silviculture in the indigenous forest has stopped,” said Mr Moore. “This includes cutting out dead, deformed and diseased trees, the clearing of undergrowth to help young kauris and the planting out of kauri seedlings. There has been no felling at all in the forest this year and the last of the merchantable timber cut was taken away in February. Even if it is decided to carry on as before, we cannot start again until Christmas.” Work in the nursery and in the exotic forest at Waipoua was continuing, added Mr Moore. There were 250.000 kauri seedlings in the nursery, comprising sowings from 1946 to 1948, These were usually planted out when from two to three years old. If they could not be planted in the indigenous forest at Waipoua they could be used elsewhere, and it was proposed this year to set some out under exotic pines. A natural regeneration of up to 80 kauris to the acre had been found in exotic blocks adjacent to seed kauris, while there was no evidence of the pines infiltrating into the kauri stands.