NATURE’S PROTEST

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 4

NATURE’S PROTEST

It was a somewhat unhappy coincidence that on the very day the time-table was announced for passenger traffic on the new Stratford-Main Trunk railway the line should once again be blocked in several places by slips following heavy rain. To a certain extent slips are to be expected on sections of the line where cuttings have been made through papa formation, because papa is particularly susceptible to the influence of flowing water. In a large degree, however, the slips are part of Nature's protest at the ruthlessness and foolishness of man. Every day the tragedy of the passing of the forest is becoming more apparent. Taranaki is by nature a forested district, and the wholesale destruction of the bush without taking steps to replace it in areas unsuitable for agriculture has wrought many incidental changes, all of which are unfortunate. Vast timber supplies have vanished in smoke, virgin forest has been transformed into a tangle of undergrowth and noxious weeds, bird life is fast disappearing, and the province is being Subjected to periods of drought almost unknown fifty years ago, while springs and streams that have been flowing for centuries are not infrequently dry. The felling of the bush hks deprived the soil not only of its source of rejuvenation but also of its porousness. In consequence heavy downpours which at one time sank into the ground, seeped gradually through to outlets, and kept the soil and sub-soil practically impregnated with moisture now race in torrents down the naked hillsides causing slips and washouts. Thus in an hour or two is suddenly and violently lost water that should be retained in the ground for weeks. It is little wonder that floods and flood damage frequently recur on the deforested, broken country, traversed by the new railway line. Moreover, they are likely to be a legacy constantly with us until such time as precipitous slopes are once more clothed with the foliage which nature bequeathed to them.