THE PRESS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1976 Thar and mountain erosion

Press, 12 October 1976, Page 20

THE PRESS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1976 Thar and mountain erosion

The members of the Deerstalkers’ Association and others who signed the “Save the Thar” petition which was presented to Parliament earlier this year should not have been surprised that the Land and Agriculture Committee did not wholeheartedly endorse the petition. Had it done so the committee would have been defying the informed and considered judgments of almost all the Government departments concerned with water and soil conservation or the management of high country lands and of a great number of individual botanists and environmentalists. But the committee did recommend that these Government departments should investigate the possibility of setting aside limited areas in which small herds of thar could be retained to provide hunters with sport With this recommendation, the committee was in effect suggesting that the Government should back away from a policy of extermination of all thar and at least investigate seriously the possibility that there is a safe middle way between extermination and a lack of sufficient control to avoid critical erosion problems. That such a middle way might be found was suggested in the report prepared last year by a caucus

committee of the Labour Government. The report stated that safari hunting of thar might be allowable under licence and subject to conditions. But before the Government commits itself to any policy short of extermination it must satisfy itself —and those whose concern about the damage thar do to mountain vegetation in many areas is justifiable—that thar can be controlled in certain less critical areas without unacceptable damage being done to the vegetation of those areas and without any threat being posed to areas nearby where the threat of accelerated erosion is acute. The Land and Agriculture Committee has suggested by its cool response to the petition, that the Government should not accept uncritically the argument made by some hunters that thar in their present numbers pose no threat to vegetation and soil in the high country. Nor should the Government accept, without careful examination, the claim that much of the land classed at present as being in critical danger of erosion—particularly east of the Main Divide—could safely be reclassified to allow small herds of thar to continue to roam there. The claims of safari hunting operators in particular must be subject to close scrutiny.