"GIFTS OF NATURE”

Evening Star, Issue 21080, 18 April 1932, Page 12

"GIFTS OF NATURE”

BIRD AND PLANT LIFE “ This society’s methods are to so interest the general public as to the economic and esthetic value of New Zealand’s wonderful plant and bird life that a full realisation will be the result, and the public will then see that the preservation of these gifts of Nature is assured,” said Mr 11. A. Anderson, president of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the society at Wellington. The society, he said, had been instrumental in educating the public to the value of New Zealand’s plant and bird life, and bad, he believed, done a groat deal towards the work of establishing forest reserves and bird sanctuaries. “ I am certain,” he said, “ that the great bulk of our people arc keenly interested in the preservation of our forests and birds, and it only requires the needs being prominently brought before them to obtain any assistance necessary in the direction of preserving what remains to us of our natural inheritance. “ In New South Wales, within an area of two miles adjoining every public school in tho country districts, is a sanctuary for native birds and animals. Thus a very largo area is set aside for this purpose, and as so many school children belong to the Bird Lovers’ League, they have ample opportunity of observing and protecting tho birds and animals in these reserves. Wo have in this dominion some unique bird--the kiwi, weka, kakapo, and, loveliest of all, the pigeon—and unless we rigidly protect the* wo shall find their names added to tho long list of extinct birds, wiped out through human agency,”