National Afforestation

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 1, 26 September 1939, Page 9

National Afforestation

Sir, —I have just read an article of unquestionable authority on afforestation in Japan. Its writer states that afforestation of the mountain slopes of that country is proceeding at the rate of about 306,000,000 trees per annum. These trees consist of pines, cedars, and other conifers, and are planted with the twofold object to provide tiiiiber in the years to come and to prevent erosion in the mountains and along the course of rivers. In Japan such work is regarded as pre-eminently economic. It would be interesting to learn how much organized afforestation- is being carried out in New Zealand. Year by year the toll of erosion is chronicled in major disasters, such as occurred in the Esk Valley, Hawkes Bay; while cases of the erosion of valuable farm lands are constantly being brought under the notice of the Government; but what is the Government doing to arrest the trouble? While millions are being spent in public works which, cau in few cases show any reasonable return hundreds of acres of land are disappearing each winter, because of the incapacity of the land to hold the good rains Providence, in its wisdom, sends. Generations of white men have despoiled mountains, foothills, and valleys of their natural covering—the forest. That is possibly the greatest crime they have committed, or is it? Perhaps -the greatest crime is, not so much in clearing the land, as failing to replace in some measure the natural protection Providence has given the goil. Japan, Canada, and the United States of America, and a few other countries have realized this, and are doing a good deal of restorative work; but the flash appears to have gone out of largescale afforestation in New Zealand. There are a few plantations here and there, but these little plots are of small consequence in the light of the dissipation of the soil that is going on all over New Zealand. Here, at the end of our first century and the beginning of the second, is a work that should be made a national policy with every Government. Planned afforestation on a large scale would provide work for the unemployed, and should ensure a certain return in the years to come. Erosion, if allowed to continue unchecked by surface growth, will gradually make New Zealand less productive, more barren. Why should New Zealand not take a leaf out of Japan’s book, and devote a few hundred thousand pounds every year to this form of insurance? —I am, etc.. OREGON. Wellington, September 21.