The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1913. THE FORESTRY COMMISSION.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144083, 30 April 1913, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1913. THE FORESTRY COMMISSION.

The attitude of New Zealand with respect to its timber • resources has hitherto been that of a spendthrift who has inherited a great fortune and set out to spend it without realising that an end can come to it. Even now it is only a small minority of the people who have a full appreciation of the fact that our forests are approaching exhaustion. There is still a feverish haste to cut them out as rapidly as possible, and an outcry is raised if a few million feet of timber is imported, on tbe ground that it is interfering with local industry and preventing the realisation of the wealth,of our own forests. When one considers that less than two generations ago the greater part of the laud round Mount Egmont, especially on the eastern side, was dense forest, full of the finest of timber, and that to-day there are scarcely trees enough left to keep a single mill going between here and Hawera, it is impossible for the thoughtful to escape the conclusion that the district has lived on its capital inheritance in this respect. What has occurred here has occurred elsewhere. The Seventy-mile bush, as it was called, has gone; it is open country. Dannevirke, not many years ago a great sawmilling centre, is now a dairying district. The magnificent kauri forests of the Auckland district are almost worked out. Yet the idea uppermost in the minds of the milling industry is, not to conserve what is left and make it last as long as possible, but to turn it into cash at once, regardless of the fact that within another generation v or two at the outside, there will only bo a small remnant of the forests left. The output of the various mills amounts to' between 300,000,000 and 400,000,000 superficial’ feet every year, and the estimated amount of milling timber left in the forests at the end of 1909 was 33,060,883,437 feet, say a hundred years’ supply if it could all be made use of. But it is not all made use of. v Much of it is inaccessible, much also is destroyed, either, accidentally or by design every year. In 1905 it was estimated that there was 41,723,574,800 feet left, so that in four years nearly 9,000,000,000 feet had disappeared, icut up for export and local consumption or burned. An official estimate in T 909 gave from thirty-five to forty years as the extreme life of our own forests. This kind of thing—this rapid destruction of indigenous forests —is going on in other parts of the world in even greater degree, so that it is evident that timber will within the life-time of many now living become scarce and dear the world over. In New Zealand the demand for timber for building.

etc., grows as tlie population becomes greater, and the question arises, where are the supplies to come from? The world’s supplies are becoming less and the time will assuredly come when Australia and America will not be able to supply this country with all it wants. Hence the necessity for systematic reafforestation. The Royal Commission which sat here to-day will do good service if it helps to open the people’s eyes to the- true position, for when it is fully realised that a timber famine is within measurable distance more adequate efforts may be made to provide at least in some measure for the future. Seventeen years ago the then Government adopted an afforestation policy, but the results so far are pitifully small. Less than 19,000 acres had been planted up to the end of March, 1912, an area which, when ready for milling, which will not be for many years, will keep the mills going for only a short time. It is, of course, of very great importance from scenic and climatic points of ’views that the forests shall not be entirely destroyed, but we are thinking more just now of what another generation will do for timber. It does not matter much to us of to-day; there is timber enough left for our purposes; but what of those who oome after us ? What will our children’s children say when they know that we have wasted thousands of millions of feet of timber which should have been husbanded for future requirements, and have done so little to replant the forests? There are large areas of land more suitable for tree growing than for anything else, and there must be suitable trees for planting. We are, in fact, importing what is called Oregon pine which might easily be grown here and come to maturity in fifty years’ or less. If the Forestry Commission succeeds in enlightening the people upon these points it will have justified its mission.