Ecologists told to help needy

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 9

Ecologists told to help needy

Environmental lobbyists might be advised to direct more of their efforts to the environmental needs of less fortunate members of the community, according to an economist with 22 years experience in forestry. Mr Jack Westoby, a former member of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, said that he would find it easier to identify wholeheartedly with environmentalists if they were to direct more of their efforts in this direction. The environmental lobby had grown largely out of the middle classes, said Mr Westoby at a meeting of the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The lobby was a disparate array of pressure groups, tinged with middle-class and upper middle-ciass aspirations and values. But nevertheless the lobby had raised issues in New Zealand which should have been publicly debated years ago. Forestry was of high public interest in New Zealand and had come under close scrutiny in the last few years. “Foresters have been remarkably insensitive to society’s changing needs.” said Mr Westoby . Foresters on the whole had regarded environmen-

talists as crackpots and nuisances.

It was right that there should be confrontation between the groups, since this created public awareness and raised forfest consciousness.

“Foresters must work to meet the needs of society, which means that they must continue to accommodate some of the demands of the environmentalists.” Mr Westoby said many under-developed countries had undertaken forestry programmes which bad, in the long run been to their detriment.

Under-developed countries would now have to look at the problems of their forestry sector in a different perspective. “They will bear firmly in mind that the purpose of trees is to serve people.” If foresters in New Zealand or elsewhere were to help society define its objects in forestry, they would have to be more outgoing than in the past.

They would have to explain their practices and procedures and continually remind society of its obligations to future generations.

Mr Westoby was born in England, but now lives in retirement in Italy. He will spend several weeks in Christchurch discussing the role of foresters and forestry in society with the forestry department of Canterbury University.