A BIRD SANCTUARY, NOT A HALF-FARM

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1922, Page 6

A BIRD SANCTUARY, NOT A HALF-FARM

Apart from all controversial matters, the scientific side of the discussion.on Monday between the Minister of Lands and the Kapiti Island Sanctuary Advisory Board presented some points of interest. Dr. L. Cockayne is reported as saying, concerning the North Island generally, that if stock was kept off, the land would go back into forest within one hundred years. Applying the same ruling to Kapiti Island, a large portion of which has been for a- long time in grass, there is a reasonable prospect that the whole of the island may be reforested even without the assistance of man; and, with man's assistance, reafforestation seems to be entirely practicable within an even shorter time. It would appear, therefore, that three courses offer: (1) to deforest Kapiti and turn it into a sheep station; (2) to make an attempt, by fencing off all the "bush from all the deforested land ,(a costly process), to preserve -the existing moiety of forest, and to treat the balance as sheep-farms ; (3) to fence off the Crown land (or sanctuary) part of Kapiti from ,the Native sheep-farm (Mrs. »Vebber's), to protect the existing forest from all its enemies, and to reafforest the rest of the Crown land, thus creating a real sanctuary of New Zealand birds to which the idigenous flora is a necessity of lite. The third course is the only course consistent-with a ' true sanctuary policy. The testimony of Dr. Cockayne and others indicates that it is practicablfe.; , ■

Deforestation, which is the opposite extreme to sanctuary preservation, we need not discuss; as a thing to be aimed at —either openly and directly, or indffrectly by 'a, policy of drift—it is now out of the market. Course No. 2, which is a hybrid, may take^ more killing. But it is just as noxious as'it is insidious. N No man may serve two masters ; and the servants of a piece of Crown land which is half a birdbush (it could not be called a sanctuary) and half a sheep-farm would inevitably.be divided in their allegiance. Project such a concern into the imagination, and what does the mind's eye see? The receding of the grass-line, or the receding of the bush-line? No answer needed.

The fact is that no policy will do except a full sanctuary policy. Even in the Kapiti grassland tauhina and manuka a»ve gaining ground. What are they there < for 1 Are not imanuk'a and its allies the forerunner and protector of young' forest tree growth, and therefore the first essential of forest regeneration? Most authorities are agreed that the New Zealand forest trees need the New Zealand forest seed-bed. This soft, humid seed-bed exists only on the forest floor, and is quite different in character to the hard, • compacted, treeless ground on which grass grows. One cannot in a day transform grass turf to forest seed-bed, and therefore it would seem that the practicability of sowing seed of native trees in the deforested parts of Kapiti, in order to secure reaffor : estation, is limited. As the manuka does its work, and as other growths follow in its footsteps in their appointed cycles, seed-bed conditions will gradually be restored ; but in the meantime, where such conditions do not. sufficiently exist, veafi fovestation may be advanced by | planting. When the departmental party and its honorary advisers 1 visit Kapiti, tho occasion should be , suitable for laying down some de-

finite principles, and for deciding whether an attempt should be made to plant in the ■ open country suitable native trees, especially trees likely to fill in gaps in the routine of native bird food, such as kotukutuku (wild fuchsia),' 'cabbage tree, flax, titoki, etc. In the proceedings between the Minister and the Advisory Board, weight was properly attached to the disappearance on Kapiti of the kotukutuku —for which some people blame the opossum—and to the importance of its berry food and fire-resisting qualities. If the visit to Kapiti results in some reafforestation being done—not on paper, but in actuality—the trip will be well worth while. '