THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1936 RESERVES AND SETTLEMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22584, 24 November 1936, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1936 RESERVES AND SETTLEMENT

As Minister of Lands and Commissioner of State Forests, Mr. Langstone has been able to present a good case for the setting apart of 3,000,000 acres in the Urewera country as a reserve. This area is the whole of the Crown s inteiest in that region, and its nature justifies the step that is being taken. It is not land that can be put to profitable pastoral or agricultural use, yet to ensure the continued existence of its present characteristics is to do a service to rural industry. This follows from the fact that it consists of bushclad upland, very broken in contour, and therefore neither arable nor adapted for pasture, while these very features make it of essential value in giving protection and sustenance to the tillable tract between it and the sea. M ere it to become denuded, the flow of its streams would cease to be naturally regulated, with serious consequences to the lower and richer levels. It is not too much to say that the very promising stretches of the Rangitaiki would by devastating floods be "washed out to sea." By making it a reserve there will be achieved something very different from the locking up of acres that might produce a store of primary wealth ; instead a precaution will be taken against the impoverishment of such a store in the seaward neighbourhood and an adequate opportunity be there ensured for reaping the fruits of human effort. Too often in the past a ruthless disregard of the service thus rendered by forest heights has led to ruinous waste. Axe and fire-stick have wrought needless damage when they have gone beyond legitimate limits. The felling that has been necessary to make "clearings" for settlement has been carried "onward and upward with the brakes off," and the net result has been financially disastrous to the extent of millions of pounds. Floods, soil erosion, the silting of streams otherwise navigable, these and attendant ills have exacted a heavy penalty for folly. The lesson has been severely taught, but it has been too slowly learned.

Three specific purposes have been mentioned by Mr. Langstone as justifying the decision with reference to this Urewera area—the protection of bird life, the preservation of native bush, and the safeguarding of rich acres on the lower levels. Viewed separately, each is worth ■while, but in reality they are all served by the preservation of the bush. A further benefit will be achieved. This hinterland, as some can testify, has great scenic attraction. Save for the roads that here and there thread it, this is one of the most notable forest fastnesses of the North Island, and from some points on the routes now traversable majestic vistas open out, their charm resident mainly in the sylvan glory unfolded. There was a time, in the course of needful expeditions to run the rebel Te Kooti to earth, when its rugged, sheltering defiles baffled many a pursuit. That is an episode almost forgotten, but the natural features so well aiding the quarry of the historic chase remain to-day as magnificent delights of the eye. As a forest reserve, this tract should lure many beauty-loving wayfarers, whose enjoyment of it will not be damped by reflections that it might have been economically turned to productive material uses. That, in other circumstances, is a consideration of vital importance. The question then at issue—it has been raised by a deputation waiting upon Mr. Lar.;gstone in another district —is whether an area should be devoted to one or other of rival activities, say farming or afforestation. There can be only one reasonable answer to the question, and Mr. Langstone has given it: the decision must be made in accordance with the suitability of the area for particular purposes, judged by the potential economic return. This criterion is the only one then in order, and proper co-ordination of the Land and Forestry Departments can ensure its satisfactory application. In the case of the Crown's holding in the Urewera country this question does not arise.

The Minister's survey of the various activities represented by public reserves—domains, scenic regions and national parks—will be read with interest. The acreage figures he has supplied are not readily available. As a total covering all three divisions of reserves, 11,674,165 acres may seem a disproportionately large figure when compared with the aggregate area of the Dominion, which (including outlying islands), is 66,390,196 acres. But his analysis reveals that a very large share of these reserves—the national parks in mountain and fiord regions and the areas of permanent and provisional State forests—is so naturally constituted that its legislative setting apart follows, in general, the inescapable contours of the country. Nature has, to a large extent, dictated that some tracts shall be immune from the onslaught of the ploughman and even from the more venturesome invasion of the pastoralist. To turn to utmost account the possibilities of every acre is a duty calling for little argument, but when all that can be done by intensive farming has been accomplished there must still be a large remainder unsettled yet otherwise of Bervice.