LOVE FOR TREES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 21 February 1931, Page 9

LOVE FOR TREES

CULTURAL: ECONOMIC RESTORING VIRGIN LIFE AT WILTON’S BUSH (By the New Zealand Forestry League.) Wellington has been blessed beyond (be limits of most capital cities, in Unit Wellington lias been endowed with about seventy thousand acres of liver basin lands running from 5000 feet down to sea level, and including many thousands of acres of primeval forest. This huge endowment, mostly a gift (from the Government) of state Forests, is controlled by a Water Board representative of the local bodies. Realisation of water supply is deferred, but as a wild life asset (flora and fauna) this 70,000 acres of mountain, valley, stream, and forest represents great riches, present and potential. It is only twenty miles from the city, and it almost touches the suburban limits of the railway. Transport service is by two railways (ono running through it) and various liighwavs and roads.

first crop is best crop Still closer to the Capital City—in fact a part thereof —is Wilton’s Bush, which is vested in the Wellington City Council. To a visitor accustomed to sec the environs of a city swept clean of all traces of the original vegetation, it comes as a pleasant shock to note the conservation of so many thousand acres of native forest at the 20 miles-30 miles radius (Water Board’s area), and perhaps as an even greater shock, to find within the city itself, and within half-an-liour of the post office, a treasure such as Wilton’s Busli, now becoming better known as the Otari Native Plant Museum. There are acres of this hush that are very little altered —“a brand plucked from the burning.” Without giving any adequate grass result, farmers and other fire-raisers have destroyed hillside after hillside of indigenous vegetation. But parts of Wilton’s Bush, lying in the sheltered valley of one of the two main branches of the Kaiwharawliara Stream —about midway between the two city reservoirs on the head of that stream and its mouth at “Kaiwarra,” where it enters Wellington harbour—have survived axe and flame, thanks partly to accident and partly to the Nature-love and national spirit of the late Mr Martin Chapman. The salvage of Wilton’s Bush is in its way as wonderful as tin; conservation of the Water Board’s Ilutt basin lands. From the point of view of indigenous vegetation and fauna, Wellington lias in Wilton’s Bush, the Botanic Gardens (still nearer the city), Williams Park (across the harbour at Day’s Bay), and in the basins of 'the Mutt, the Orongorongo, and the Wai-nui-o-Mata, a series of units each one „f which will lie valued by posterity in a way that the present populace (on whom falls .some monetary sacrifice) hardly realises. But the effort is more than worth while. May public opinion rally with loyalty round that idea.

THANKS TO STEEP, POOR SOIL Disadvantages are sometimes blessings in disguise. Often in the last ninety years, people have complained of the steepness of the country round Wellington harbour, of its ring of mountains (barrier to transport), of the poorness and instability of the soil on the precipitious, burned-over hills. Flat, rich land, it was complained was scarce (and scarcer still to-day through failure to protect it from the deforested Ilutt River). But, glancing at tlio surroundings of cities that have grown up in level, rich, arable plains, it is evident that the availability of such level land sealed the doom of its indigenous vegetation. Conversely, the Wellington countryside owes the partial salvage of the indigenous primarily to the fact that the land was poor and steep. The obvious folly .of reckless burning on the Hutt Valley hills has helped to preserve from “settlement” a remnant of the higher spurs, which passed through the legal stages of Crown land and State Forest to Water Board ownership. And tlio poor-soiled mountain rampart tliaF performed this miracle of conservation has not really blocked transport, because, owing to the liarbourlessness of tbe rest of tbe coast, all roads in this southern part of tlio North lead to Wellington harbour. While commerce lias thriven in the last ninety years, not very much attention lias been given to these survivals of the indigenous within short radius of the Capital City; but the time has come when civic life must take more stock—and is taking more stock— of its wild life assets, near and far.

WHAT BOTANISTS ARE DOING The Botanic Gardens, a place of beauty for both native and exotic, are nearest to the city’s centre, but the botanists’ paradise is Wilton’s Bush. Dr. Cockayne, C.M.G., F.R.S* has put Wilton’s Bush on the map. He has pointed out to the public that “in nature, plants do not grow haphazard, but they form well-defined communities, each more or less distinct from any other.” Such communities may be subdivided into different smaller communities. Conservation of the indigenous implies the preservation pure of these communities and plant associations. But such a thing would be impossible in Britain, and indeed in Europe generally. In those countries, “to reproduce the virgin vegetation is impossible in the majority of cases, since there arc no longer living ex ' amples of such communities. But in our land, though'the face of Nature is day by clay being changed out of all recognition, fortunately most of the plant-communities can still be seen in t heir virgin state, but usually far from the beaten track.” Thus, adds Dr. Cockayne, primitive New Zealand “may in time be brought back again and havo its home in an actual city. ’ .1 hat is, in Wilton’s Bush. Botanieally and culturally, this aim, mid the other equally' important aims that the botanists strive at in the Otari Native Riant Museum, Wilton’s Bush, is in the highest grade of public service. The city is culturally benefited that can point to such a forest and such Icdan'sfs.

AUXILIARY FUNDS NEEDED 31iu*li of the service that has been done and is being done is given without payment, but the paid labour involved ' in development and research will be considerable, and one of the questions to be faced is the establishment of a public fund that will supplement Wellington City Council funds. At present the City Council is spending n certain amount of money annually

on Wilton’s Bush as one of Something more is if the planned special development—far more comprehensive than outlined above—is to be carried on, and if the Gresley Lukin Alpine Garden and, other new botanic features are-: to yield their lull results. At a time when public funds are limited by tradci circumstances there could he no better subject for private bequests. The establishment of a trust fund, auxiliary to the City Council’s expenditure, would enable botanic research to he put upon a stronger economic basis. In the meantime, it may be accomplishing something to direct public attention to what is being done in the interests of indigenous vegetation at Wilton’s Bush, in the way of conservation and restoration. TTfipuitcly the development oi new forest produc s will repay handsomely. But. comment'apart, is there noi a moral valmyin offering one more object lesson in the virtue of love for trees?