The Press WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1964. Forestry

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 16

The Press WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1964. Forestry

It has been said that the care of trees is the best single criterion of each generation’s regard for its heritage and its consideration for posterity. A generation which hands on to posterity finer trees, and more of them, than it inherited, passes the test. New Zealanders of the present generation have a mixed record, as a study of the annual report of the Director-General of Forests (Mr A. L. Poole) shows. Our grandchildren will certainly have a greatlyreduced area of native forest at their disposal, but we should bequeath better stands of exotic timber, as well as the industries to exploit them. Mr Poole reports laconically that “ no progress has been made “ on the decontrol or revision of price control on “sawn timber, so that the timber industry still “ operates under the severe handicaps mentioned in “last year’s report”. His 1963 report stated that unless price control on sawn timber (in force since 1936) “is substantially modified or abolished out- “ right, the future of tree growing in New Zealand “ will be seriously handicapped ”, His statement was based on the rapid decline of accessible stands of native timber, which Mr Poole attributed to artificially low prices for this high-grade building material. These low prices also discouraged the substitution of exotic for native timbers and the planting of new stands of timber by private enterprise. Since March 31 (the end of the year reviewed in Mr Poole’s latest report) minor increases in timber prices have been approved, but they do little to rectify the situation: at the present rate of felling, there will be virtually no accessible stands of native timber two or three generations hence. Less reprehensible is our management of exotic forests. We inherited the world’s largest man-made forests from the 1920 s and 19305. Because so many of these stands were planted about the same time, this inheritance was of considerably less value than a smaller area of forests of different ages. We can bequeath a more valuable asset if we cut and replant each year, even if the area replanted is smaller than the area cut. There is, therefore, every justification for a policy aimed at felling and using every tree at maturity; for pine trees (the main variety in our exotic forests) mature quickly in New Zealand and thereafter decline in quality. In the process, New Zealand is developing a timber, pulp, and paper Industry of respectable stature by world standards. The value of New Zealand’s exports of forest products last year totalled £ll million, nearly £4 million more than imports of special varieties of these products. The large capital investment in this industry since the war ensures that posterity will derive the greatest benefit from the new stands of exotic timber now being planted. The Forest Service and forestry companies are paying more attention to such techniques as high pruning and improved means of thinning, which can easily double the value of a stand of timber.

Mr Poole rightly draws attention to the need for new stands to be properly sited in relation to other stands, to pulp and paper mills, to ports, and to markets. In his enthusiasm for forestry, however, he may have gone too far-in the following passage: “ Since plenty of land is available, particularly land “which is marginal for .agriculture, 'we have unique “advantages to develop forests and forest indus- “ tries ”. Since the discovery of the cobalt treatment of the North Island pumice lands and since the development of aerial spraying and topdressing, and other advances in breaking in farm land, farming is much less marginal in many areas than formerly. Any large increase in the area planted in exotic forests might be an embarrassment to our successors. That is all the more reason why we should pay still more attention to a regular age distribution and a high standard of maintenance of the forests we bequeath.