"PRIVATE RESERVES"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 131, 30 November 1933, Page 12

"PRIVATE RESERVES"

One of the clauses in the Scenery Preservation Act Amendment Bill provides a new power to enable private land to be declared a private reserve. Private reserves so created will be subject to much the same law as are scenic reserves, and thus the powers to protect the land against vandalism will be increased. It is certainly an advantage that the special penalties to which flowerdestroyers, tree-hackers, and planttakers are liable when on scenic reserves should be more widely spread over the dwindling indigenous vegetation of the country, whatever its ownership; but penalties are not effective unless enforced, and the fact that scenic and other publicly-owned reserves, parks, forests, etc., are too much plundered, notwithstanding their special laws, proves that the legal power must be backed by the will to apply it. No doubt there are some private owners of forest who will be glad to take up the new weapon offered to private owners by the Bill, and who will use it effectively, perhaps more effectively than do the public authorities themselves. But the right of an owner of private land to give it the private reserve status under the Bill is optional; his neighbours may or may not cooperate. It is, indeed, protective power for individual holdings rather than for forests. As such, it is a step in theright direction. But more will be needed. v