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Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1938, Page 4

The proposal of the State Forest Service to develop the timber region at Lake lantlie, under a five year plan of log production by selection, seems hardly to give the promise attached to this enterprise, which of course will be very costly. The management of State forests in this district has not had a happy issue. The experience with the State Nursery at Back Creek was not to the satisfaction even of the Department and despite every effort to succeed, the outfit was put on the market. The planting, too, was not the success hoped lor, at least that may be deducted from a casual glance of the plantations along the roadsides. The logging scheme will have to cope l with the dense undergrowth of our native forests, and ravaging a way with access tracks, and the crushing Vandalism of heavy tractors, the native flora will suffer much destruction. Our bush is not easily penetrable, and once opened dp is liable to decline when wind and weather reach .the trees. Logging implies felling and hauling, and the process must disturb the forest growth considerably. Likewise there is the cost of this selection process, picking out mature trees, and endangering younger trees coming on. The density of-the native forest is one of its natural but once opened up there, is at once imminent risk from fires, endangering the whole countryside, It would be very gratifying ’.if

this new enterprise could be established on economic lines, but on both actual cost, compared with milling methods on a face, and the contingent risks to the remaining forests, the proposal does not suggest a really, payable proposition. If the area is to be expected to yield promptly* its sterling value, then railway access by the extension from Ross, would give millers the cheapest transport, and the ieturn in royalties to the Crown would give in substance a material contribution to the cost of the railway: We do not know whether the scheme is upproved finally under the five year plan, but some frank comment from experienced millers and bushmen would throw useful light on the success likely to attend the new enterprise in the dense West Coast bush country.