Eyrewell Block Cleared

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 1

Eyrewell Block Cleared

The Forest Service has completed the first stage of converting part of the wind-thrown areas of Eyrewell forest into farmland.

Contractors working for the service have cleaned up 500 acres of land and are now working on a second block of 225 acres. All debris which remained after the wind-thrown timber had been milled has been piled into heaps ready for disposal.

Under a scheme announced last year by the then Minister

of Forests (Mr Gerard), big sectors of the Eyrewell forest will be handed over to the Lands and Survey Department for fanning. Two lots each of about 1200 acres which cover part of the wind-thrown area and part of an area containing standing trees will be farmed on a permanent basis. The first 500 acres are almost ready for sowing down. The second area is expected to be ready in about three months. Act As Tunnels

The two farming blocks will cut through the existing forest in a north-west, southwest direction and act as tunnels to lessen the impact of strong northerly winds on the trees. The blocks will be 50 chains wide and three miles deep.

The Lands and Survey Department may also take over another 4000 acres of the forest for sheep grazing while the Forest Service prepares its replanting programme. The decision to devote strips of land at Eyrewell to farming was made after ways of protecting the forest from a repetition of the windthrow which destroyed about half the forest more than two years ago had been studied. The senior forester in Christchurch (Mr H. H. Wilson) said yesterday that the means of disposing of the piled debris on the cleared section of the forest had not been completed. There seemed little prospects of selling any of the debris, even for firewood. £e Mid-