Tikumu’s letter

Press, 19 June 1979, Page 16

Tikumu’s letter

Dear Readers, The word arbor means a tree, and on Arbor Day people are asked to plant trees. In the United States of America it is observed as a spring-time holiday so that people are free from work to go tree planting.

For many years the people of New Zealand have planted their trees for Arbor Day early in August, but this year Arbor Day was held on June 5, because June is deemed to be a more favourable month for treeplanting. On June 5 children from North New Brighton, Woolston, Waltham and Aranui Schools planted about 1800 shrubs and trees near the Sign of the Takahe. Primary school children are helping the Canterbury Education Board to plant more than 9000 trees on the Waimairi plantation. Arbor Day comes once a year, but the men of the New Zealand Forest Service are working all the time, raising young trees, planting them, and guarding our forests against fire and destruction by vandals. We need timber in so many ways, and our forests have dwindled alarmingly in the last 200 years.

When the white men began to settle in New Zealand, about two-thirds of the land was covered with forest, but much of it was cleared for the animals to graze, and for

men to grow crops 1< r tood. Timber was needed for houses, and large quantities were sold overseas, as well. Kauri timber was greatly sought-after in other countries. As the population increased, our forests decreased, and without their natural forest homes, many of our native birds disappeared. Areas of land laid bare by the cutting of the forests were exposed to winds and rain. No longer were there trees to break the downfall of the rainwater with their leaves, and to hold the moisture at their roots to conserve the precious fertile topsoil, which cascaded down the barren slopes with the water. Erosion of the soil and serious flooding were the results.

The Forest Service has had io plant forests of exotic trees to replace the native ones that have been felled. The 200,000-acre Kaingaroa State Forest in the North Island is said to be the largest man-made forest in the world. Closer to home are the State forests at Balmoral and Hanmer.

The people of Sweden call their forests “green gold,” because they value them so highly. How much do we value our forests? Enough to help the men of the New Zealand Forest Service in their work, by caring for what is left of our native forests, and our new exotic forests, as if they were gold?