CONFLICTING CARES

Evening Star, Issue 23408, 27 October 1939, Page 11

CONFLICTING CARES

NATIVE BUSH AND PUBLIC RESERVES CITY COUNCIL'S POLICY CRITICISED Contending that the care of the pub lie reserves and gardens should be dissociated from the care of the native bush areas, the Otago Native Bush Preservation Society passed a resolution at a meeting held last night that a recommendation be made to the City Council that the office of superintendent -(of reserves should be divided into two separate offices. It was decided to Organise a deputation to the City Council at an early date, placing before that body the society’s contentions.

About 25 members attended the meeting, which was presided over by Dr H. D. Skinner, who delivered an address on the objects of the society, illustrating bis talk with lantern slides. “ The rapid decrease in the area occupied by native bush in rural Otago,” aaid Dr Skinner, “ has been principally due to agricultural and pastoral activities, and in particular to the employment by settlers of fire. In recent years a new and deadly menace to native bush has developed in the herds of deer that now infest the mountain Übnges, and in the chamois, which have spread north and south from the Mount Cook region. Some day the society may advance into these rural and mountain districts. But for the present all its energies will be easily absorbed in caring for the remnants of native bush still preserved within the Dunedin city boundaries. Within this area there is still enough old bush left to be well worth fighting for. Wo are not in a position yet to say what parts of the city reserves were once heavily timbered, which were covered by light timber or scrub, and which were actually open. We may be sure that in parts of the Belt there was. in preEuropean times, some fairly heavy timber—rimu, totars, broadleaf, and even white pine. Such trees doubtless grew in the area behind Royal Terrace, and further up the elope from there across Queen’s Drive and up to Wallace street. The same types of timber probably grew in the‘gull^’ at the'fOoVof Newington avenue, at present one of the 1 misery spots ’ of the Belt, packed ns it ia, with sycamores, elder, blackberry and muhlenbeckia, Similat timber probably flourished in the gully bottoms about Cosy Dell, at the bottom of the Bullock Track, and, of course, on the flat now called the iWoodhaugh Gardens.

“ Several factors have been active in bringing about the present highy unsatisfactory state of the native bush within the city boundaries. In the first place, the settlers’ need for timber for buildings and fences resulted in the early curing out of rirau and totara.. Equally early, but probably slower in its action, was the need for firewood. Third may be placed the depredations of stock, which destroyed young trees that might otherwise have replaced trees cut for timber or firewood, and fourth place may perhaps be given to the general drying up that follows when bush is broken into. These four factors_ may he regarded as unavoidable and ihevi•teble. The rest spring from human frailty, and might have been avoided if forethought or.the civic sense had been exercised. The raiding of city reserves lor ferns and small plants to place in gardens is sometimes justifiable on the plea that the ferns and plants removed would otherwise have been destroyed in street widening or track making, but sufficient ferns and small plants have been destroyed in the making of the new North road up the Leith valley to have carpeted the Belt from end to end. The ruthless destruction of ancient treeferns has been the worst feature of the new Leith road. Within the last year or two some of the last of the big ferns in the Belt bordering Totcarne Avenue have had their heads lopped off to decorate dance halls for a single evening’s dancing in the city. A sixth factor in the destruction of native hush has been the depositing of rubbish, sometimes just out of sight, but more often partially covered, or not covered at all. We are all so familiar with this that it needs no elaboration. Seventh andi last in the list is the work of unskilled and unsupervised gangs on the process that is described by the authorities as cleaning up the Belt.” Following the illustration by pictures of the points raised in hia president’s address. Dr Skinner put forward the suggestion, that it would be desirable to carry out the policy of the society by the creation of local committees whose duty it would bo to watch over allotted parts of the Town Belt. Such committees would be vigilance committees, and would be concerned with bringing to book offenders who deposited rubbish or caused fires or otherwise endangered the native bush. Perhaps they would also be called upon to do some planting. It was suggested that the Reserves Committee should he asked for permission to appoint rangers, and Cr J. W Munro, to whom this proposal had already been put, was in favour of the idea. Mr C. A. Hamer said he remembered when Woodhaugh and the cliffs above the Bullock Track had been adorned with noble pines. What, he asked, was the use of the committees suggested by the president if the City Council were to continue to allow its superintendent and his employees _ to clear away whole areas? He claimed that the catting down of trees by poor woodsmen > had resulted in the loss of much native bush, and condemned the policy of allotting parts of the Town Belt to sports clubs, instancing tho Kaituna Bowling Club’s new green. _ The secretary, Mr G. Howes, said the authorities were entitled to allot portions of the Belt for sports. The Belt had been designed for the pleasure of the people of the city, and it >

remained at the discretion of the authorities to decide what form that pleasure should take. Mr Hamer said most of these things were done by chairmen of committees, whose desire it was to please their own supporters. “It is time this sort of thing was stopped.” he said. In reply to a question, the President said) it was intended shortly to arrange a to the City Council to go into the subject of the works in hand involving the clearing of native bush. A lady member said public parks should not be with reserves in the care they recinired from the local authority. Mr Tannock’s work in the Gardens was widely appreciated, but he had not the same sympathy in his policy towards the native bush. If there were two separate officials the work might get somewhere. Miss Hayward moved that the society ask the City Council to consider the question of separating tho two offices, the motion being carried.