TONGARIRO NATIONAL PARK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22353, 26 February 1936, Page 12

TONGARIRO NATIONAL PARK

The requests made to the Government by the Federated Mountain Clubs for the Expansion and development of the Tongariro National Park are, in general, an expression of the out-of-door cult through which there is in progress a back-to-nature-reac-tion from the modern tendency to tie men and women to the economic wheel. While the actual wheel beneath a motor engine is helping the movement there is a growing healthful urge not only in the kingdom of youth to satisfy deep-rooted instincts by tramping the wild, living simply, and experiencing the great and abiding joys of mountain, bush and river far from the beaten track. It is well ' that those associated through the mountain clubs are vigilant guardians of the great parks. So far as the Tongariro National Park is concerned it should not be forgotten that originally the area contained hardly a tree. Through the recommendations of the late Dr. L. Cockayne the beech-clad gullies to the east of Tongariro and the beech slopes to the south and west of Ruapehu were added t-o it, the new forest area covering 24,000 acres. It is now suggested that a forest area about Otuku, on the Tongariro slopes, should be added, and on general principles the idea should be supported, for the present generation is only the custodian of a future heritage. Requests in the matter of maintenance and development should not be dismissed and the control of the Ketetahi thermal springs is not a matter that should be postponed too long. As to the menace of deer in the forest'regions of the park there can be no argument. Here deer are an enemy to be destroyed.