Controlled Logging Only Way For Native Timber

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 24

Controlled Logging Only Way For Native Timber

New Zealand native timbers must be conserved as long as possible and controlled logging is the only way to maintain sup* plies of high-grade timber. Exotics, properly treated, are an ideal substitute for general building purposes, however.

That is the opinion of Mr F. J. Ranger, who retires as Conservator of Forests at Christchurch this month after 41 years in the service. Mr Banter has watched the Forest Service grow from a Cinderella department to the multi-million-pound undertaking it is today. He has seen the amsxing growth of exotics and the equally rapid boom in pulp and paper. Starting as a forest labourer. Mr Ranger himself reached one of the highest positions in the service Even before Joining it, Mr Ranger had a working knowledge of forestry. His father ran a small sawmill at Ohakune, in conjunction with farming. Joining the service in 1924. Mr Ranger's first job was as a labourer-chainman

in the southern King Country area. One of bis early tasks was establishing on open tussock country sample plots of exotics, some of which are still growing. In 1929, he was transferred to the Westland Conservancy, where he was employed until 1539 on timber appraisal work. This meant measuring standing timber for milling surveying the millable areas and spending considerable periods in remote areas, such as Jackson's Bay. Then he went back to the King Country and at one period was in charge of planting exotics on 20.000 acres. In 194 S he became senior ranger at Palmerston North and two years later went to Tapanui as district ranger. The Conical Hill sawmill was then being built and he had his hands full, working on arrangements for logging, timber supplies for the mill and roading. Animal Control After five years at Tapanui. Mr Ranger was appointed senior ranger for the Nelson Conservancy. Extensive planting was taking place at both the Golden Downs and Rai Valley forests and two important decisions had been made by the Government One was

the integration of the noxious animal control scheme with the service; the other, the start of the junior woodsmen scheme. As senior ranger, Mr Ranger had a lot to do with both schemes before being posted to Rotorua in 1958, again as senior ranger. He worked mostly on timber sales and fire control work for three years before taking charge of Kaingaroa State Forest, New Zealand's largest exotic area. Last year he was promoted to the position of Conservator of Forests at Christchurch. This job gave him one of his biggest problems. In March, IM4. 10,000 acres of Eyrewell State Forest was blown down Most of the timber has now been salvaged, but there was the question of whether Eyrewell should be retained for future timber supplies for Canterbury. A few weeks ago the Minister of Forests (Mr Gerard) said it would be retained, and Mr Ranger agrees with this view.

“It’s not a question of Eyrewell or something else,” he said. “It must be Eyrewell and something else. Eyrewell will be all right now.” Canterbury’s Needs Specialised planting methods would minimise wind-damage, but the main reason for the forest being maintained was

Canterbury's future timber needs. There was not sufficient suitable growing country elsewhere to meet the future demand, he said. In the early days of the Forest Service, the plantinc of exotics was widely criticised. People did not seem to realise that native timber supplies were rapidly dwindling, said Mr Ranger, and New Zealand had to thank Captain Mackintosh Ellis, the first Director of Forestry, for having the tenacity to push along the planting programme and Sir Francis Bell, the then Minister of Forests, for bis foresight. When Mr Ranger first joined the service, conditions were “fairly rugged.” The men lived in tents, often in places inaccessible except for pack-horse or on foot In 1924, for example, there was only one vehicle in the whole of the Wellington conservancy. Isolation often made men so much reliant on one another. It gave them a spirit of comradeship, particularly in forestry where one was working for the future, not the present. Mr Ranger said he owed a lot to the ability and character of the original staff he worked with at Ohakune and Hokitika. “Those men had vision,” he said. “They played an enormous part in establishing the Forest Service and instilled in me the feeling they had of working for the future.”