NATURAL FORESTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23272, 15 February 1939, Page 16

NATURAL FORESTS

GREATLY REDUCED AREA UNPLANNED SETTLEMENT nee:d for river control PROTECTIVE TREE-PLANTING-■[by TELEGRAPH—CWN coiirespondent] WELLINGTON, Tuesday Maps showing the -bush-covered areas of New Zealand at various stages back as far as 1850 have been prepared by the Department of Lands and Survey. In that year the forest areas totalled 31,719.000 acres, in 1880 it was 29,314,000 acres, in 1910 19,123.000 acres, and in 1938 it had fallen t>o 12.900.000 ficres. The Minister of Lands, Air. Langstone, in an interview, said that these maps were designed to illustrate the progress of settlement. They made a striking picture of the millions of acres that had been denuded of forest as a result of the encroachment of settlement./

Mr/' Langstone said there had been no checking the settlement of land, ■which proceeded on haphazard lines. This was unavoidable, and the settlers, with the best of intentions for their own and the country's good, used the axe and the firestick to some purpose. In the past there had been no national appreciation of the need for an economical plan of conservation of our ■natural forests. Years of Work Ahead

"To-day we are receiving with almost startling suddenness the most unpleasant jolts to remind us that soil erosion, altered stream-flow, and damage to lower-lying lands through periodic flooding are the natural consequence of our unplanned system of land settlement," said Mr. Langstone. "A terrible toll is being exacted each year from State and individual alike. In this country, as in Australia, the United States and other countries, we are up against a problem which cries out for - immediate attention. The problem is two-fold—river control, and protective tree-planting. > "Both are works of great magnitude, and it will take years before they can be made effective. To attempt tp keep rivers in their channels without protective planting on the barren hills and highlands is like putting the cart before the horse. A long-range plan must be evolved, so that each year a certain part of the programme shall be carried out. To do this ivork effectively the Public Works Department, in co-operation with the Departments of Lands, Forestry' and Agriculture, will need comprehensive statutory powers to prevent the destruction of bush which should be conserved and to give authority to plant privately owned as well as Crown lands, wherever planting should be done."

Reserves and Domains -= Mr. Langstone said that the Lands Department, for • many .years, had endeavoured to do something to check the wholesale removal of bush froni the hills, and without any public acclaim had gradually built up permanent reserves such as national, parks, scenic reserves and domains, totalling 4,386,000 acres.; In addition 7.900",000 acres of : bush land had been made either permanent or provisional State forest reserve, and -Crown areas of 458.000 acres had been planted in exotics. - . * , , ; , ' , i

Tijere were, therefore, some 12,754,000 acres from which no further trouble 6hould eventuate, although he did not mean to say that all of this area was actually in bush. This area, however, constituted only a comparatively small part, of New Zealand, and the lands from which the real troubles came were unfortunately beyoud the department's jurisdiction. Freehold lands comprised 21,591.072 acres, Crown leaseholds totalled 18,850,150 acres, and native lands, mostly leased," 4,547,144 acres. The total area of unallotted Crown land left in the hands of the Lands Department (most' of which . was unsuitable for settlement) was-1,728,048 acres. *