DESTRUCTION OF NATIVE BUSH

Southland Times, Issue 23181, 23 April 1937, Page 7

DESTRUCTION OF NATIVE BUSH

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES RESULTING (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 22. “Many New Zealanders hold up their hands in horror when we read about dust storms and floods in America, but we fail to see that the position is even more menacing right here in New Zealand,” said Captain E. V. Sanderson, president of the New Zealand Forest and Bird Protection Society in an address on the serious consequences resulting from the destruction of native bush and vegetation. Captain Sanderson said that 90 per cent, of the original forest of this country had been destroyed. It took 500 years to form one inch of top soil and New Zealand was losing it at a much greater rate. “This country consists of narrow islands rising steeply to mountainous country and surrounded by very deep seas. The top soil from which nearly all our wealth comes is washed away to sea, but the sea does not give it back in the form of coastal reclamation. Nature has endowed our country with a wonderful water-holding association of plant life and this heritage we have slain with fire, the axe, the saw and the introduction of alien enemies such as deer and goats.” Mr W. H. Field said that only in recent years had the public awakened to the fact that the destruction of native bush had gone too far and it was only a matter of years'before New Zealand would be a desert.