Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1921. DEMARCATE THE FOREST

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 19, 22 January 1921, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1921. DEMARCATE THE FOREST

The policy statement of the Commissioner of State Forests indicates a. condition of efficiency that will be attained only by instalments, but we hope that the Government ■will not be niggardly over the first instalment, and will provide the Commissioner and the Director of Forests with the means to make a substantial start. With regard to paragriphs 1 (classification of forests) and 2 (demarcation and organisation) of the detailed requirements, we assume that in order to classify soils, and to demarcate those areas "more suitable for the production of forest crops than agricultural or pastoral crops," a survey will be needed. How long the survey will take, ho\r many men ■will work on it, and what it will cost annually we do not know, but we think that thjs work of classification- and demarcation should be attacked seriously, so that New Zealand may k,now within a reasonable time what permanent forest land it possesses. At present the provisional State forest* are like gold-silver-lead bullion. There is plenty of forest land as. valuable (in the long run) as gold, and there is some potential agricultural or pastoral land that may rank as silver; but no one knows how much gold, and how much silver. "Base lead"—which Bassanio found to be a prize-winner—may be represented by the mountain tops of the "provisional" ,areas. Above the bushline, as a rule, neither forester nor farmer competes, but the high country is- not least among Nature's assets, and it is well that the limi.ts and boundaries should be ascertained, so that the Government and the people should know more definitely what material thty have to work upon. And it should be remetn-. bered that the undertaking on which the Government has embarked is not only a matter of forest growth but also of stream-flow, the key to |ivhich is the mountain chains- that form the backbone and skeleton of every well-watered, diversified country

This consideration leads up to paragraph 3 of the detailed requirements : Conservation of all forested regions from which flow streams, or upon which are dependent the water for hydro-elec-tric projects, irrigation '_eohemes, the water supply of communities, etc. One day the Hutt Valley will carry a, very large, population, .yet almost no water conservation has been effected in the water-shed areas of the clear-water tributaries' of the Hutt. A' small creek has been utilised to supply domestic water to Upper Hutt, but the Akatarawa, the Little Akatarawa, and the Whakatiki have been allowed to pass, through successive stages of deforestation and pollution. Indeed, the only conservation attempted on a big, scale is the inclusion of the head waters of the Hutt itself in the Government's Tararua reserve, and these waters, though excellent, are remote "in situation. If- the principle enunciated in the above paragraph had been observed, the progressive aberration of the valleys' of the clear-water tributaries would not have been permitted, a-ud the day will come when a thickly-populated Hutt Valley will regret the omission. For the present, the immediate interests of Wellington City, in the matter of water-supply, lie outside the Hutt Valley, because .the earlier engineers chose streams that flow [to Cook Strait—the Wainui-o-mata, and the Orohgorongo—but. the neglect of the Hutt, basin will nevertheless react in time, even upon the city/ unless 6omo eleventh-hour siep is .taken to save what

is left of the bush on the Whakatiki and Little Akatarawa. These instances serve to illustrate, the general need that tho Commissioner of State.Forests hasir. mind. A feature-of his scheme is forestry education, which is proposed to be carried on at one university college and two State ranger schools. Admittedly New Zealand must train her own foresters, and it cannot all be done in the bush. The forest engineer needs a greater, and the ranger a lesser, scientific equipment. Another necessary thing is forestry research, and education and research appear to go hand-in-hand^.