AN URGENT NEED

Grey River Argus, 20 August 1937, Page 5

AN URGENT NEED

THE DEMARCATION OF LANDS The need of a stocktaking, in order to obtain accurate estimates of the remnant of our native forests, is an urgent economic necessity. It is believed that some work was done in this direction about the year 1924, and that this showed that the remnants of real native forest were alarmingly small even at that time. Much of those areas has since been cut out. (Says “Forest and Bird,” organ of the Forest and Bird Protection Society). A recent authoritative statement gives the remaining forest land, including scrub covered land and second growth, as 20 million acres. This official estimate is made up as follows —National Parks, 3,000,000 acres; Scenic Reserves and Domains, 1,000,000 State Forest Reserves, 8,000,000 (presumably including exotic plantations, 1,000,000 acres); otherwise owned, 7,750,000. An estimate made on such a basis can only be likened to a business which overvalues its stock-in-trade, and thereby misleads itself and the public, because much of the land on the reservation named carries neither scrub nor second growth, let alone forests, as it includes large areas of snow-capped mountain tops, such as Egmont, Ruapehu, Tongariro, extensive areas in Fiordland National Park, and waste lands (without scrub or second growth even) on all reservations.

It is feared that an accurate stocktaking of the remnant of real forest would bring the total area down to as low a figure as three million acres. Nobody knows, as far as we can ascertain, what the total acreage is of the remnant of real forest still intact. Now what would be said about the business, which managed its affairs in such a manner that it never knew what stock it had on hand, and now far it could draw on its stock without depleting its resources and bringing its operations to a standstill. A soundly managed business enterprise would know its resources in stock and how to utilise them to the best advantage. In the same way, then, the first act in dealing with our land resources should have been to ascertain their areas and qualities, in order that each class could be put to its best purposes, whether it was agriculture, pastoral, forestry, scenic, etc. But what did blundering New Zealanders do? They felled forests which should have remained standing. They financed hardy pioneers to do this'and to attempt to make a living off land which was unsuited for farming purposes, with the result that the work of these deluded pioneers was lost to the community and much loan money had to be written off. Lands have been destroyed for a small gold return on lands winch would have returned real necessaries of life for centuries, if they had been put to their proper purposes. Succes- 4 ive Governments have allowed large areas of high tussock country to be burned and grazed until its natural water-retaining qualities have been destroyed, and much of it is now of little use for pastoral purposes, but is a terrible menace to lower and much more fertile lands. Thus the disastrous blundering has gone on from one decade to another. But it is never too late to mend. So why not now,' begin where we should have first begun and demarcate all of our lands to their proper purpose, irrespective of ownership. Then, as opportunity offers, we can put the lands to their most productive purposes. Most people, during the past few years, have been merely talking platitudes, both as regards forest and wild life conservation. The time has arrived for action, real live action, if the soil of New Zealand is to be saved for posterity.