Waipoua Forest

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25555, 24 July 1948, Page 6

Waipoua Forest

It is not important that the House of Representatives, for lack of time to complete its debate, failed to take a vote on the recommendation of the Lands Committee concerning the Waipoua Forest petitions. What is important is that the Government, which has still to decide the fate of Waipoua. has been told, in terms open to no misunderstanding, that the public’s deep distrust and suspicion of the policy of the State Forest Service is shared bv many members of- Parliament on both sides of the House. That policy was shortly defined by the member for Rangitikei:

The Government’s plan w*as to preserve only 7400 acres intact out of an area of 39.000 [not all of which is kauri forest]. Outside that 7400 acres dead trees would be milled, taking about seven years, after which mature and dying trees would be felled, taking another three years. After that period of 10 years it was proposed to conduct further milling, eventually taking all trees of a diameter exceeding three feet.

It should not be forgotten that the 7400 -acres were rescued from the department’s plans for commercial exploitation of the forest only by the emphatic protests of scientific. cultural. and educational bodies, and of the public. That should be considered bv those who have to decide whether the State Forest Service is the appropriate body to administer the area. The alternative, proposed in two of the three petitions to Parliament, is the reservation of the whole or a large part of the forest as a national park and its administration by a trust

board. Apologists for Government policy in the House seized on an apparent inconsistency in the position of members of the Lands Committee—that while they supported the petitions they also expressed the opinion that the forest should be in the charge of the State Forest Service. The simple explanation is to be found in the speech of Mr A. C. Baxter (Government, Raglan). After expressing his objection to the attempts of “ pressure groups ’’ to influence him and other members, he went on to say that very few people who signed the petitions knew the facts. It was not until members of the Lands Committee visited the forest and had the position explained to them that they knew what was going on. Although he had voted for the recommendatiori, there was no doubt that the most capable organisation to administer the forest was the State Forest Service.

This statement, from a member of the Government, is enlightening. He and other members of*the committee went to the forest, and presumably had the plans of the department, shown to them by departmental officers in the light most favourable to the department. Yet a majority of members of the committee, after learning “the facts” and seeing for themselves “ what is “ going on ”, have been so unfavourably impressed that they recommend that the forest should be removed from the control of the State Forest Service. Clearly, they have been convinced, as scientists and foresters have been convinced, that the department’s policy is bad; that it will fail in its object—a secondary one, it is feared, to the production of timber—of preserving for posterity this last remnant of the superb kauri forest that once clothed a large part of the North Island. This is the one essential fact that must not be overlooked by the Government when it frames its policy for Waipoua. It does not matter very much who controls Waipoua as long as the kauri forest is fully protected; but if it remains in the charge of the State Forest Service the hands of that commer-cially-minded department will have to be firmly tied by law.