Erosion views challenged

Press, 30 December 1976, Page 3

Erosion views challenged

Staff reporter Wellington,

The Westland Catchment! Board has been urged by the conservation group, Action 1 for Environment, to conduct future surveys in the Charleston State forest on the ground rather than rely oi I observations from the air. i The group’s secretary (Mrs H. Rainforth) has challenged a statement by the board’s, chief engineer (Mr H. E. Clarke) about erosion in the] forest.

Mr Clarke was reported ini “The Press” of December 28 as saying that the group’s' statements about erosion! were “highly exaggerated! and quite misleading.” Mrs Rainforth said the group had been contacted by! officials in two separate Goveminent departments who had recounted stories of erosion on the slopes above the Nile River in the Charleston State forest, and had suggested that Action for En'vironment should inspect this erosion.

Members of the group had done so during Labour Day week-end.

“Our party was shattered to see erosion down to bedrock on slopes that had been clear-felled,” Mrs Rainforth said. “This erosion was also inspected in a private capacity by a D.S.I.R. geologist, who said he was appalled by this erosion on sandstone and limestone slopes, which being highly erodable should never have been clear-felled,”' she said. “The geologist said that some parts of this country had now been so deeply, eroded that it would be very difficult to establish exotics or other trees.

“It is quite correct, contrary to Mr Clarke’s assertion about exaggerated claims, that the hauling of logs up to a ridge top road in the area has caused extensive forest destraction and laid the ground bare to erosion,” Mrs Rainforth said. “We suggest that the Westland Catchment Board conducts a detailed ground survey of the area rather than rely on observations from the air,” she said.