HIGH GRAZING LAND

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29250, 7 July 1960, Page 14

HIGH GRAZING LAND

Minister Denies Misuse • From Out Parttomentarv Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 6. It was not correct that 7,500,000 acres of high grasslands was being destroyed by deliberate misuse, and the Government did not intend to withdraw this area from pastoral use, said the Mifiister of Agriculture (Mr Skinner) in the House of Representatives this afternoon. He was replying to a question by Mr J. H. George (Opposition, Central Otago), who in a written question.had drawn his attention to a statement made by Mr J. D. Raeside, of the Soil Bureau, at the Science Congress. Mr Skinner said it was not true that the area stated was being destroyed or deliberately misused, nor would it be withdrawn from use. “Though some of the higher country most susceptible to erosion may need to be withdrawn from pastoral use or made subject' to only limited grazing, there is in my view no case for the wholesale destocking of New Zealand’s tussock grasslands,” said Mr Skinner. “Some high-country areas suffered misuse during the first hundred years of their occupation, and the tendency is to emphasise the mistakes of the past and ignore the progress made in recent years in remedying them. The Government administers about 7,000,000 acres of pastoral land in the South Island, and through the Land Act, 1948, gave occupiers of this land security of tenure and with it the incentive to farm the land for the future and no* just the present. - “Other moves to safeguard the high country have been the inclusion of the stock limitation clauses in all Crown pastoral leases, the appointment of specialist pastoral land officers, and the establishment of a Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute to co-ordinate research into high-country problems,” Mr Skinner said.