Plan To Arrest Erosion Urged

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30769, 5 June 1965, Page 3

Plan To Arrest Erosion Urged

r.Veic Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 4. A multi-purpose conception of how to use New Zealand’s water resources in her best interests was needed if continued serious erosion and loss of water were to be arrested and. in time, remedied, said Mr 11. E. L. Pickering (Govt., Rangiora) in Parliament today.

( The country had good men lin all spheres and abreast of world thinking whose work was to deal with this problem, but they were hamstrung by lack of political appreciation, public support and administrative action. The country needed a concerted plan for soil and water conservation. Mr Pickering said he based his opinion on what he had seen and learned in New Zealand, and on observations and discussions in the United States and Europe. The erosion problem was serious in many areas, including the Ruahines, around Taihape and Marlborough. Land was being lost and farmlands depleted with water sweeping rapidly out to sea and causing regular serious floods. The catchment boards, the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council and. more recently, the Waikato River Valley Authority, had done good work, but too much was in the lower regions and too little to attack the source of trouble in the high country.