MR J. B. WATT TO RETIRE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27151, 22 September 1953, Page 11

MR J. B. WATT TO RETIRE

CAREER WITH FOREST SERVICE

SENIOR CANTERBURY RANGER

There is only one other man in the New Zealand Forest Service who has been employed longer- by the service than Mr J. B. Watt, senior forest ranger in the Canterbury district, who will retire at the end of this month.

Mr S. A. C. Darby, now Conservator of Forests at Palmerston North, joined the newly-formed Forestry Department in August, 1919. In that month, Mr Watt returned to New Zealand after serving overseas in World War I, and his appointment with the department did not become effective till the end of his disembarkation leave.

Mr Watt’s first job with the department was 4at Kaingaroa. In the early 1920’s the first Director of the department, Captain L. Mclntosh Ellis, set a target to plant about 25,000 acres Of trees a year at Kaingaroa. Mr Watt’s work involved the laying out of areas for this big planting programme. When he first went to Kaingaroa, there were 5000 acres of trees. Prisoners and returned soldiers were then doing the planting. The 1952 annual report of the Forest Service recorded that the forest comprised 263,000 acres of trees. Pinus radiata trees on areas that Mr Watt surveyed for planting are now being milled, and other trees grown on areas that he laid out will be used when the Murupara newsprint industry is started. “Changed Attitude” The attitude of people to trees had changed while he had been with the Forest Service, said Mr Watt in an interview. Once, people who had trees on their land cut them off to increase production. Now they planted trees for shelter. There had also been changes in the Forest Service. In the early years forest workers had had no permanent camps. They lived in tents. It was not till 1927 that Mr Watt saw a permanent forest cookhouse. At first there were few mechanical laboursaving devices to help the forestry workers. Mr Watt recalled how the first clumsy tractor he saw at work subsided into an underground watercourse and took three days to dig out. Now. the service had the most modern equipment to fight forest fires, but 20 or 30 years ago forest workers had to face fires with a shovel, slasher arid beaters. Born in Wellington and brought up in the Loburn district. Mr Watt was educated at the Rangiora High School. He served his cadetship in surveying with a Wellington firm. Towards the end of 1915 he joined the Lands and Survey Department. From 1919 to 1928 he worked in the Rotorua district. He was then transferred to Hastings as district forest ranger, and for 10 years from 1930 he was district ranger at Ohakune. Then he moved to Canterbury as senior forest ranger, and was at first stationed at Hanmer Springs. In 1942 he was transferred to the West Coast in a similar capacity. He returned to Canterbury in 1947. For more than six years Mr Watt has represented the Forest Service on the South Canterbury Catchment Board. He plans to live in retirement in Christchurch.