BIRDS AND TREES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 133, 3 December 1930, Page 7

BIRDS AND TREES

CONTROL'COMPLEX

LIMITS OF RULING UNITS

SEARCH FOE POLICY

(By "Co-operationist.") A renewed effort is being made to secure reconsideration of the question, of whether a greater degree- of unity, or of co-ordination, in the control of wild life is practicable. Wild life is this sense means flora as well as fauna. In the recent past there have been two extreme views. One is that corporate unity of control of wild life should at once be effected.. The other is. that the present division of control is necessary —even "ideal" —and that no departure from it is thinkable. • Between these two extremes are variious opinions making for greater coordination and for steps towards unity (as contrasted with immediate unity). Out of this middle body of opinion it is hoped to fashion a workable compromise. This hope is based partly on the understanding that the acclimatisation societies are, and have been, in favour of closer, co-operation. ACTS THAT SUNDER CONTROL. The organisation of wild life control has grown up in a piecemeal way out of various Acts of Parliament. To give effect to the Animals and Birds Protection Act (the first Act was passed as long ago as 1867) an administering Department had to be found. The Department of Internal Affairs was given the job. While it was not a Department primarily expert in wild life matters, it was considered to' be the most suitable: of the Departments. It included the Dominion Museum staff, and it availed itself of the services of the New Zealand Institute and of the acclimatisation societies. In recent years it has undergone further wild life development by building up expert services under its own direct control (examples: the fresh water fisheries staff at Taupo and Botorua, and still more recently the appointment of an inspector, now in charge of the Department's deer-killing campaign). Long after the Animals and Birds Protection Act, Parliament passed a State Forests Act. The Forestry Department (State Forest Service) is the administering Department1. The former Act covers the whole country, including State forests, but the State Forests Act covers only State forests. The older Act affects certain specified wild life (including native birds) anywhere in New Zealand, on Government or private land. The State Forests Act, on the other- hand, primarily affects trees and vegetation in State forests and plantations; and under it exists a State Forest Service whoso considerable staff, of forest rangers constitute an important body of experts in wild life. TERRITORIAL AND COMMERCIAL. The Forestry 'Department has the great bulk of forest'experts, but their main business is forestry, and their theatre (so far as the indigenous forests are concerned) is confined to the State forests. The Internal Affairs Department has but a limited expert staff, whose theatre is general, the Animals and Birds Protection Act having no territorial limits. But while the departmental staff, is thus limited, the Department .is given by the, Animals and Birds Protection Act "authority .over other expert services, which thus become available to it so far as the administration of that Act is concerned. The State forest rangers themselves are rangers under that Act. The wild life horizon is, however, obviously a wider'thing than the scope of the Animals and Birds Protection Act. "To say that that Act is under the single control of the Department of Internal Affairs would be to leave untouched the point that wild life is not under single control. ' Glance back to the respective Acts, and it is plain to see how each Department became what it has become with regard to wild life. The Birds and Animals Protection Act did not create a. commercial enterprise, and therefore did not lead immediately to employment of a large staff. But the Forestry Department (dating from about 1918) and the-State Forests Act did both these. ■The Forestry Department - had a forest asset1 to sell and a forest asset to protect. To distinguish between commercial utilisation on the one hand and' conservation on the other, and in order to secure the,best value for the milling section of indigenous forests, the Forestry Department was forced to employ, a body of experts. •'Commercialisation helped to provide the funds for conservation. Opinions may differ as to whether the balance has boen held fairly, as' between the two. But it will be admitted that the very nature of the undertaking meant the establishment of a corps of forest experts, whose forestry bias does not prevent them from being wild life experts, and who could indeed hardly fail to be such. But whose theatre, as mentioned, is confined to State forests and plantations. PUTURE OF RANGING. While the timber industry was bound to give rise to a State Forest Service, there was no industry that was bound to lead to the creation of a corps of rangers, employed by the Department of Internal Affairs, under the Birds and Animals Protection Act. This fact is a reason why the Internal Affairs Department did not develop an expert service on the scale of the State Forest Service. Banging on the scale of the State Forest Service was perhaps not to be expected outside of its restricted theatre. But to say that is not to say that the ranging and protective measures of other authorities (including the acclimatisation societies as well as the- Department of Internal Affairs) have been all that might and could have been. The purpose of this article, however, is not to stir up the past except in so far as it may provide a key to the future. The staff appointments referred to above seem to signify that the Department of Internal Affairs sees the need of ranging and more ranging, of field work and more field work. Probably the acclimatisation societies concur. One of the problems of a conference on wild life control is to consider how tins greater protection of wild life can be carried out. There is ranging by Internal Affairs, there is ranging by acclimatisation societies, there is ranging by the State Forest Service. Should the Internal Affairs Department increase its corps of rangers, men who have the whole country as their field? If so, what reaction would this expansion be likely to have on acclimatisation society ranging, which is ordinarily local in scope? These questions open up the issue of co-ordination between the ranging services of Internal Affairs, of the acclimatisation societies, and of the State Forest Service. LOOK FOR ANSWER IN THE FIELD. Ono of the first needs seems to bo to ;ct first-hand information concerning the practical side of wild life activities. Analysis of the problems in tho field might provide the shortest cut to finding out what is tho best administration for the other (top) end of the job.l

Field study is in any case worth while for its own sake, and carries much more weight than speculative generalisations. If the field work is good, tbc administration cannot be far wrong. But no administration can bo right, if the field results are not right. Administratively, there is the initial problem of one Act for native birds everywhere (with a Department 5 per cent, expert), and of another Act for native forests somewhere (with a Department 70 per cent, expert).- These Acts, unless boiled together in new legislation, help to divide wild life control. Yet the birds and the .forest are inter-dependent and wild life is really one whole, knowing no map boundaries. Then, again, there are the acclimatisation societies (and even an acclimatisation man may admit there are too many of them}, and the forests and scenic reserves falling under the Lands Department. A veritable complex. The main hope of a conference seems to be to drop the extremes and to explore middle ground.