"New Era In Land Management

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32072, 21 August 1969, Page 12

"New Era In Land Management

“Today we are entering a new era of land management in Ne w Zealand,” the Minister of Lands and Forests (Mr Maclntyre) said at a symposium on watersh e d management in water resources development at Lincoln College last evening.

“In the future, we shall demand increasingly that land wastage stops,” he said. “No individual will be allowed to promote or cause erosion. At present, with subsidies, we can induce a property owner to take conservation measures, but we cannot compel him, even though his inaction is leading to damage elsewhere.

“Neither will anyone be allowed to despoil the countryside. If for some reasonfarming. engineering or mining—the land has to be attacked, it will be accepted that part of the contract is to rehabilitate the area,” Mr Maclntyre said. “We are entering an era of) multiple use of land. I be-' lieve that our traditional i policy of committing land to )one use is outdated.

“Surely before allocating land to one use or another, we should scientifically and objectively determine which

use would most benefit the nation. Surely also, when we have decided on the primary use, we should see what other uses are compatible. Diversification

“Multiple use of State forest parks is already Government policy. Soil and water conservation, recreation and timber production are compatible, if you establish your priorities. “Multiple use of some

Crown farmland also is not far away. • “For example, Te Paki farm park is being developed in the far north and a committee is studying Molesworth station to see if forestry, farming, recreation and tourism might be compatible with the present cattle ranching. “I like to dream that. 100 years from now, our lowland productivity will be much higher and that our eroding,

sparsely grazed highlands will be covered in trees giving greater retention of water, greater protection from erosion, and, in some areas, greater production. “Trees, wildlife and tourists will all be there. Our land managers of the future will cater for them all," he said.

Manager Of Future The man who would be wanted to manage the country’s mountain lands in the future, Mr Maclntyre said, would be a cross between a fields officer, a forester, an agricultural adviser, a wildlife officer, soil conservator, valuer, scientist, engineer and tourist promoter—and a poet at heart. “He must be brawny and have no brains—or he would not take it on,” he added. “We shall call him a range manager.” Mr Maclntyre said that watershed management was commonly considered a nearlunatic concept from America, that could be left to a handful of hydrologists, soil <onservators, aberrant foresters and misguided Ministers of the Crown and other enthusiasts . . . But in fact watershed management was part of good land management. In his view every piece of land on which rain fell was part of a watershed, and everyone engaged in land management was automatically engaged in watershed management, said Mr Maclntyre. Everything a landowner, occupier or manager did on or to his land would have some effect, major or minor, direct or indirect, on the flow of water from the land. The entire responsibility was his and could not be passed on.

Advice Available The land manager could choose only between good or bad watershed management practices, and today, with the experience of Government departments, universities and research organisations to call on, there was no excuse for ignorance of what might happen if a particular land management technique was used. Another concept considered by many people to be a newfangled American notion was range management, but in fact range management had been) practised in New Zealand for more than 100 years, under the name of tussock grassland management.

What was new was the American terminology, which was being slowly adopted because the terms range and rangeland were understood overseas and the term tussock grassland was not, Mr Maclntyre said.