AHEAD OF PROGRAMME

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 8

AHEAD OF PROGRAMME

STATE AFFORESTATIOK OUTLINE OF POLICY

(THE SUN'S Parliamentary r kirpor PARLIAMENT BLDGS.. Friday * Recommendations will shortly be placed before Cabinet by the Commissioner of State Forests, thl Hon. W. B. Taverner. providing for the inauguration of a 10-y**" planting programme, an d the annual establishment of an area very much smaller than at present. Mr. Taverner, speaking in the House of Representatives today, gave as a reason that the present planting pro _ gramme of the State Forest Service will be finished four years ahead of schedule. The Minister explained that the service was at present working to a. programme of establishing 300,000 acres by 1935, but with improved methods, etc., and the ability of afforestation work to absorb a considerable number of men in months when unemployment was troublesome planting was so far ahead that at the conclusion of the present season. *h% area established would approximate 238,000 acres. At the current rate of progress the objective of 300.000 acres was expected to be reached" bv 1931. The most reliable expert estimate available indicated that New Zealand’s native timber would be practically exhausted by 1965. when the total timber requirements for the Dominion would be about 700.000,000 board feet per annum. Of this quantity State plantations were estimated to produce 450,000.000 feet per annum, local body and private plantations 150.000.000 feet, indigenous forests 50.000,000 feet, and importations (mainly hardwoods) 50.000.000 feet. It was further estimated that the State plantation yield referred to would come from the 300,000 acres to be planted by 1931. MILLIONS OF ACRES After emphasising that it would be the Government s policy not to plant trees on land where wool could be grown, the Minister pointed out that there were still some millions of acres which could not be used for any form of farming, and much of it could, by being used for afforestation, be made productive. Furthermore, there was every reason to expect that the surplus softwood timbers could in future be advantageously disposed of for the production of paper and other materials. The peculiar suitability of afforestation as a means of absorbing surplus labour during the winter must not be lost sight of. TEN-YEAR PROGRAMME The Minister explained that careful consideration of those and other factors had enabled him to reach the conclusions which he intended to express shortly in recommendations to Cabinet regarding the future policy of the service. “I am not at the moment in a position to go into details,” Mr. Taverner added, “but I may say my recommendations will be in the direction of laying down a ten-year planting programme starting from the date of the attainment of the present objective of 300,000 acres, and providing for the annual establishment of an area very much lower than at present.” “It must not be assumed that if these proposals are adopted the activity of the department as a whole wall be in any way lessened,” he continued, “for there is a wide and, as yet, practically untouched, field of work in the conservation and management of native forests. I expect that’ the result of my proposals, if adopted, would be that, whereas the department’s main activity at present lies in the establishment of exotic plantations, its attention, after the completion of its present planting programme, would tend to be engaged mainly in the conservtion and scientific management

of the indigenous forests, and the maintenance and management of exotic plantations already existing.