MAKING FLOODS WORSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 8

MAKING FLOODS WORSE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The frightful devastation that has taken place in Hawke's Bay and surrounding district, where I see the Minister of Mines is reported as having expressed the opinion that the damage done exceeds that of the late great earthquake, is largely due to the wholesale destruction of .the. native covering in the shape of the bush, first by the unrestricted chopping and burning of it, and secondly by the importation and turning loose of such enemies of the undergrowth and regeneration of the native bush as goats and deer. It was this latter blunder that was to put .the finishing stroke to the first error, by destroying the recuperative powers of Nature to make good the mistake made by the unregulated clearing of bush in places never intended, save as a watershed.

We have, it is true, a staff in the South Island, specially for the purpqse of keeping down the number of goats and deer by shooting them. But I have spoken to aviators who have flown over much of this rugged hill country in the South Island soon after the ranger and his staff have been out on their work, and they have told me that the actual effect on the number of goats and deer is negligible, as to cope with the natural increase in the deer alone would entail the destruction of. at least 300,000 every year. All^ the shooting really does is to drive^ the animals further 'back on to the rugged back hill country, whence they return as soon as the ranger and his men have departed. Even to restore some of the pristine conditions prior to the importation of these animals would entail the high fencing-off of the area when planted, and then the -permanent establishment of a ranger and men under him, to patrol the area so protected, until at any rate the bush or shrubs had grown beyond the power of these animals to damage them. And this will be a pretty costly piece of work. ' •

Yet I see that moose from Canada have been introduced into the Milford Sound district, and I read not long ago a letter in a South Island paper, written by an American visitor to that part, expressing his pleasure at seeing evidences of these animals' presence in the bush! It is strange how people seem incapable of seeing that the conditions in Canada, where moose and elk and such grazing animals have been adapted to food other than forest growth, are quite different from in New Zealand, where, until the coming of the white man, large animals of any sort were unknown, save the human, and the interference of the Maori with the bush was practically nil. Hence the introduction and liberation of goats, deer, and other grazing animals practically entailed the destruction of the native bush, unless it was specially protected. That this will have to be done, and very soon upon a scale rfever yet attempted, must be plain to all. —I am, etc.,

Ngaio, April 30.