STATE FORESTRY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18089, 16 May 1933, Page 9

STATE FORESTRY

TIMBER EXPLOITATION WORK OF SERVICE SURVEYED Advances made by the State Forest Service since its inception fourteen years ago were discussed by the Commissioner of State Forests, Hon. E. A. Ransom, when opening the annual meeting of I bo Now Zealand Institute of Foresters »i Wellington Mr. Ransom recalled that in 1919 Sir Francis Bell had announced his intention of' establishing a Slate Forest Service, this being accomplished soon afterwards. The constant absorption of labor, said the Minister, was nut the least of the contributions that fores try made to the industrial national com plex

“The professional forester,’’ said Mr, Hansom, “is trained to think of long term benefits. The forest- owner, ol which the State is the largest in this country, wants that long term to be made as short as possible. Their ideals are tints at variance almost from tin beginning, and if 1 may say so as a representative of forest owners, the professional man seems at times prone to over-stress the ‘long-term’ side of the business, Conditions in all walks of life are to-day changing so rapidly, and it: none more so than in forestry, that this attitude of mind is to he deprecated ; and tho forest owner lias every right to demand that his foresters leave no stone unturned in their endeavors to anticipate further rapid changes and to bn ready to profit bv them.” DEMARCATION SURVEYS Mr. Ransom said that in 1919 there were throughout the Dominion fewer than 1,500,000 acres ot State forests. Tne then Commissioner was faced with the problem of increasing tins area rapidly, without encroaching irretrievably on settlement land, and without spending at once unproeurably large sums for exploratory demarcation surveys.* He devised the expedient of provisional State forests, i.e., land to be handled as State forest for timber exploitation as the timber industry needed, but subject to later examination as regards suitability for settlement, and if required for this purpose, returnable to the Lauds Department by a much simplified procedure. Tho main point of this classification was that it saved the expense of costly special demarcation surveys, these being done subsequently at low cost whenever other work was in hand in the district concerned. “There has been,” said Mr. Ransom, "a good deal of exchange of areas between the Forest Service and the Lands Department until now the demarcation lines between forest and settlement land are reasonably stabilised. During the past year we have, without any expense, entered on the permament demarcation, phase, and .some 600,000 acres of the 1922 provisional State forests have been duly proclaimed permanent State forests. The wisdom of this 1919 expedient lias thus been amply proven. Practically no hitches have occurred, remote areas have been examined by both departments at leisure and at no additional cost, and many thousands of pounds have been saved by this avoidance of unduo haste.”

LOCAL BODY GRANTS Dealing with the question of grants to local bodies from the national timber revenues, Mr. Ransom said that in 1919 the commissioner could only predict that “sooner or later the whole revenue must go to the State Forestry Account.” To-dav, the position was still the same, although the amounts granted were now in some cases less than then.

“I am aware,” said the Minister, “that you probably all hold as foresters that the payments to local bodies from timber revenues are an unfair drain on your forest revenues, but you also know that long-established statutory rights cannot equitably be extinguished by a stroke of the pen. “I have little doubt that in due course the sum total of forest revenues will be devoted to forestry, but in some cases, however wrong the procedure may seem to you as technical men, the administrative history of the forests shows clearly that the revenue from the present crop on certain lands was long ago guaranteed to local bodies. Successive administrations have always honored that guarantee, and in my opinion every just administration must honor it until the virgin crop is totally exploited.” In conclusion, Mr. Hansom said that in 1919 there were perhaps 50,000 acres of exotic forests in New Zealand, and about 1 per cent, of the timber cut was of exotic species; in 1933 there were 609,000 acres of exotic pines (mainly of the younger age classes) and ■ the timber supplied from these stands was 9 per cent, of the annual cut.