AFFORESTATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23370, 9 December 1937, Page 10

AFFORESTATION

The scheme of afforestation that was suggested to the City Council this week by a deputation representing various local organisations possesses merits that should ensure for it careful consideration on the part of the committee to which it has been referred. If effect should be given to it, a large area of land in Otago, probably between 40,000 and 50,000 acres, would eventually be acquired by the City Council

and afforested. The Municipal Corporations Act does not confer on any municipality the power to enter upon a commercial enterprise of this description, and it would be necessary that enabling legislation should be passed to permit the council to undertake this scheme. Of the value of afforestation the city has already had experience. The Mayor claims, probably with authority, that it has planted, and is planting, more than any other city in the Empire. The plantations that have been established constitute an important municipal asset. They cover land that for the most part could hardly be put to more profitable use. The success with which the City Council has met in its afforestation activity has been such as should encourage it to persevere, as far as is possible, with enterprise of this description. Vision is prominently exhibited in the scheme which has been brought under the notice of the council. The land which would be devoted to afforestation, if the scheme were adopted, is mainly land that is lying waste and it includes only a few occupied areas of small extent. If it could be utilised in the manner that has been suggested, the foundation would, as was said by Mr J. B. Waters, the principal spokesman of the deputation, be laid for a large-scale and permanent industry in the future. There are questions of cost and control that have to be investigated, but in the form in which it has been presented the scheme has an attractiveness which makes a strong appeal.