FOREST CONSERVATION

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 86, 8 October 1921, Page 4

FOREST CONSERVATION

The •Commissioner of Forests, Sir Francis Bell, has been slaying " demarcation." But what does " demarcation " mean? If it means the drawing of an unalterable Ijne, on one side of which all the land .is irrevocably forest land,, then " demarcation " certainly does not suit the changeful requirements of a rapidly developing countryside, and may indeed be quite impracticable. When The Post spoke of " demarcation "it certainly did not refer to a cast-iron partitioning, but to a " demarcation " that should be elastic, and conformable to dewlopmental change. Now, it may be that the Commissioner's practice of gazetting Provisional State Forests sufficiently approximates to " demarcation" in its latter and more liberal sense. If that be so, we do not wish to withhold one word of that "credit" which, Sir - Francis Bell claims, is due to the Government " for inventing a process that has enabled State forests to be created." We congratulate the Minister on the P.S.F. patches he has put on the atlas, and, far from rebuking him for throwing bouquets at himself, we implore him to throw more—in other words, to gazette a- few more P.S.F.'s. Are there not quite a number of areas that should be treated in this way, and yet the gazetting is " hanging fire " ?