FORESTRY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 June 1924, Page 11

FORESTRY.

NEW ZEALAND TIMBER. CONSERVATION NEEDED. (by TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, June Sir Francis Bell, in opening the Dominion conference on the use of building timbers, said that he hoped that the p?‘ohibition of the export of limbers wouIl! lie by Statute instead of Order-in-Covmeil. He trusted that when the present abnormal demand for timber slackened people would resist the grant of any demand for export of the country’s timber, which must be conserved for the Dominion. It was this country’s heritage, not that of the world.

The conference is being held with reference to specifications, regulations and by-laws covering the use of timber in buildings. The conference is the outcome of a report presented to the Government by the Director of Forestry in 1920 regarding the treatment of the forestry situation in. the Dominion. This report provided for a study of the sawmiiling and wood using industries- with the •'object of securing more economical utilisation of forests and the pieliminary &tudy of woodusing industries consuming more than half the wood used in the Dominion. Mr. Wm. Page, president of the New' Zealand Institute of Architects, is presiding, and about 40 delegates’ are in attendance.

The president said that lie had no doubt the conference would do good. They had reached a- day of want, or at least of strong necessity, for conservation, and they could* not biit Uol alarmed three-quarters of Hie virgin forest of the Dominion had gone, and more was being used now than was being grown. The object of the conference was to decide the policy of conservation and to eliminate, or endeavour to eliminate, all waste. The conference has been divided into three committees, who will deliberate to-day.