DEFORESTATION IN NEW ZEALAND

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 9

DEFORESTATION IN NEW ZEALAND

(By L. S. Gibbs, in the Gardeners' Chronicle.) During a recent visit to New Zealand, of some six months' duration, which was undertaken for botanical purposes, the results of deforestation everywhere to be witnessed in the country between Auckland and the Bluff were such as to create an impression as painful as it is indelible. Past and present evidences of the effect of the destruction haunt one everywhere, from the barren plains and barren kills of the older " settled " districts in the one case to the miles of blackened standing tree stumps, even on much-advertised tourist routes, in the other. These results are caused by the requirements of the settlers, for, unfortunately, they and devastating bush files always go hand in hand. Once the fire has done its worst, English grass seed is immediately sown, and cattle and horses are turned loose amongst the standing and prostrate logs, which are left to rot on the ground. A little homestead will be run up amidst the debirs, a couple of rectangular paddocks will be, perhaps, cleared of the roots of the trees and enclosed by a hedge of Pinus pinaster (erroneously called P. insignis) and Cupressus macrocarpus respectively as wind screens, and the result is a typical New Zealand landscape. To have the pine without the cupressus would be wanting in imagination and taste; both come up easily from seed, grow equally quickly, so custom dictated by convenience clings to both. Should a stream be handy, custom again insists on Salix babylouica as a similarly amenable plant, and the blackened logs of the magnificent native forest are not even evident to the typical New Zealander. The remaining forest land is generally Government property, and is leased in •'sections," which, when large areas are opened up, are put up to auction. This land may be covered with the most splendid forest growth, such as the Waimarina Bush, now being cut up by the Main Trunk railway from Wellington to Auckland, which has been purposely run through it. It is leased indiscriminately to anybody and everybody, and settlers are allowed to burn it down ruthlessly with utter disregard to the topographical nature of the country or edaphic conditions. The region in question, like the greater portion of the North Island, is* of a soapstone or " tappa " formation, which weathers into a clammy clay.' Where hilly, the hills are very steep and ridgy, through which the streams cut narrow channels with perpendicular walls. When once the fore3t growth has been cleared, the surface soil, with its new-sown grass, is continually washing down the sharp ridges, leaving the clay exposed, and the banks of the stream resolve themselves into a mass of debris. This country, while still clothed with the graceful native forest, is as lovely as one could desire, recalling the soft distances of Fiji. Cleared in the usual wasteful fashion, where a small amount is cultivated and the rest is allowed to run to waste, not only are the uninteresting contours of the country exposed to view, but the forest is replaced by a weedy upgrowth of Fuchsia excorticata and Aristotelia racemosa, mixed with any and every species of the •heterogeneous mas 3 of herbaceous and shrubby aliens which are ever ready to invade fresh areas, turning a natural garden into a vegetative slum. In New Zealand, as in the Pacific Islands, where the rainfall provides the conditions required for a wooded country, there are few native herbaceous plants, those which do occur being limited, with some exceptions, to the shade conditions of the natural forest. Alter those conditions, and they can no longer hold their own against the alien invaders of older settled countries, which have already proved their powers in the battle of existence. In New Zealand there are one or two exceptions, such being the aristotelia and fuchsia mentioned above, one or two of the acsenas are perfect pests, whilst Muehlenbeekia complexa successfully competes with its European, American, and Australian rivals. This sort of growth is *een all down the Wanganui River from Pipiriki, varied only by Maori settlements. Above Pipiriki, where the cutting of the river channel is more recent, and denudation has not yet weathered the perpendicular tappa" cliffs, they are still wreathed with their natural garlands of Metrosideros hy per ki folia. Cladium sinclairii, Lomana capensis, and other plants. The disreputable-looking Maori who idled our canoe up stream voiced, parrotlike, the cry of the country, "Too much bush, too few children." " Bush " is there to be burnt, and the sooner the better. It is a most contemptuous and unfortunate term. Forests, open woods, and secondary scrub are all lumped together as " bush." The main forest growth may consist of totara (Podocarpus totara), rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), or beech. Were the term " bush " limited

j solely to the* woods and scrub, and the forests called by the name of their predominant species, then a greater popular ' value would perhaps be attached to these , native trees. j Further painful evidence of wholesale clearing on tappa, which, apparently, { carries the finest forest, is seen in the Waitakerei Hills to the north of Auckland, which run up to 1000 ft, and naturally were densely wooded (judging from ' the bleached skeletons of the dead and the ! isolated specimens of the living) with, J magnificent kauri (Agathis australis), rimu, with its weeping branches, the ' yew-like totara ? and the exceedingly graceful and delicate toatoa (Phyllocladus „ ! trichomanoides) with its fern-like claI dodes. On the uplands of this range there is a great deal of moisture, which, where the kahdkatea or swamp piae (Podo- , carpus dacrydioides) and kauri has been ! cut down by sawmills or burnt, results in ] large bog areas with great clay holes. , Fortunately for the country, such destruc- • I tion is now stopped hi certain parts of this area. The hills are intersected by ; two rivers, the Nihotapu and the Waitaj kerei, both of which have been reserved for the Auckland water supply. The ! municipality having bought up the whole ■ watershed, with admirable foresight has I turned out every settler in the region, I not even permitting pasturage along the J roads. From a botanical standpoint:, however, the best trees have already been cut out. On the outlying spurs, which on the Nihotapu side form steep ridges, just as in the country between Ohakune and Pipiriki previously described, such pntection is not forthcoming and the settlers are allowed to work their pleasure. Thus these spurs "will become reduced to the condition of the foothills which rim out, for a long distance, washed of all surface soil and overgrown with manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) and the alien Hakea aciphylla. , . It is in the little pans which this clay forms between the manuka bushes that Phylloglossum drummondii abounds. Lycopodium densum, the peculiar orchid, Pterostylis graminea, and the übiquitous Leucopogon fraseri keep it company. , In the north of the island, where cleared land is not immediately put down to <*rass and kept clean, manuka and fern always take possession, and great areas run to waste on which foimerly grew fane forest. It is on such land that gumdigging goes on, all these waste areas having" been assiduously turned over. That the gumdiggers do not limit their ' attention to the gum which lies m the soil is shown by the report on the kauri, forest reserve recently made for the JSew Zealand Government, in which the fact is noted that most of the trees had been damaged by taping for resin. ' The formation of this reserve is a tardy 1 yielding to the untiring representations ■ of the botanists of the country, who had to stand helplessly by while one of tha most magnificent resources of their coun--1 try the irreplaceable growth of centuries ' of a species limited to comparatively small i areas and otherwise unknown, \yas I being' ruthlessly exterminated for com--1 mercial purposes.