Caring For High Country

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32306, 26 May 1970, Page 9

Caring For High Country

“Abandon it and you destroy it • . . without healthy, , profitable high country farming I see little real prospect of any transition, any cultural bridge to any other possible pattern of resource use in the future of the high country,” said Professor K. F. O’Connor, professor of range management at Lincoln College and director of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute, at the farmers’ conference at Lincoln yesterday. In speaking to the physical environment conference in Wellington, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) had suggested that New Zealand had not yet suffered the worst forms of pollution of its resources. In fact, the most serious water pollutant was eroded material. Professor O’Connor said. Thousands of acres.

especially at the high alti-. I tudes, had been retired from I active grazing during the last 10 years to decelerate this ’ erosion. Many thousands of damaged acres were still in pastoral occupation Healing all of these damaged resources would require money and human effort. But all the resource problems in the high country were not going to be dissipated merely by closing the gate on them. In some zones in the mountains, especially in the high rainfall areas, effective dedi--1 cation to a wilderness state 1 was probably sufficient to ’ secure their conservation. ’ However, there were many more acres where man's cul--1 ture was needed to restore ' and preserve the resources. So-called unoccupied land . might need the same kind of I care and attention as retired • land. The effective occupa- , |tion of and responsibility for

j the region as a whole was the I necessary prerequisite. It was here that the part-' nership between the pastoral runholder and the Lands Department as tenant and landlord was so important. To persist and bear fruit this partnership needed technical services of a greatly improved kind. It must have conti nu- ■ ing good will on both sides : as well as from the community at large and from more specialised authorities at ' local, regional and national 1 ; level. J “Above all it must not be merely an economically viable partnership, but a pro- ; [ ductivcly and economically vital, growing, flowering and fertile relationship.”