SCENIC RESERVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14511, 27 October 1910, Page 6

SCENIC RESERVES.

AN AMENDING BILL. THE NEW PROPOSALS. [by mlegeaph.-—special correspondent.] Wellington, Wednesday. A bill introduced in the House of Representatives this evening proposes to amend the Scenery Preservation Act in a number of directions. The Scenery Preservation Board is increased by the addition of the Under-Secretary of the Native Department, and the Surveyor-General shall be chairman of the Board. The definitions of private and Crown kinds are altered to —"Crown land has the same meaning as in the Public Works Act, 1908." " Private land" means any land other than Crown land, and includes native land and any former Crown land reserved for any public purpose whatsoever, whether or not the land so reserved has been vested in any trustees or body corporate. • Any person who discharges any firearm or kills or takes any birds or any native or imported game in a reserve is liable to a penalty not exceeding £100. The Governor may grant to natives the right to take or kill birds not for the time being especially protected, within any reserve which, before the reservation or taking thereof was native land, or where any reserve includes any ancestral burial ground of the natives, the right to bury deceased natives therein. Where any reserve is no longer suitable in the opinion of the Governor for scenic purposes, he may revoke the reservation, and thereafter the land may be disposed of as Crown land under the Land Act, 1908, and the net proceeds of such disposal shall be applied solely towards the purchase or acquisition of other lands as reserves under the principal Act. The Minister may grant leases of or licenses to occupy open or cleared portions of any reserve for periods not exceeding five years, on such terms and conditions and at such rentals as he thinks fit. The proceeds of all such leases or licenses shall be applied towards the purposes of the principal Act. All native or other land taken under the Public Works Act, 1908, or the Public Works Act, 1905, or the Public Works Act, 1894, for the purposes of scenery preservation prior to the passing of this Act, shall be deemed to have been validly taken. It shall be lawful for the Governor, whenever he deems it expedient for the purposes of scenery preservation, to grant in fee-simple any area of Crown land in exchange for the fee-simple of any other land which is of approximately equal value, and on any such exchange to pay or receive, by way of equality of exchange, any sum not exceeding 10 per cent, of the estimated value of the Crown lands so granted. Such exchange may be made under the provisions of section 142 of the Land Act, 1908, or sections 380 to 386 of the Native Land Act, 1909, as the case may be.