TIMBER ESSENTIAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18627, 24 July 1930, Page 16

TIMBER ESSENTIAL

State Forests Service

Conservation of our remaining forests and the afforestation of all lands which cannot be profitably farmed are the two cardinal points in the policy ol the State Forests Service, according to an important statement made recently by the Hon. W. B. Taverner, Commissioner of State Forests, who reviewed the position on Forestry in the Dominion. and explained what line the Service intended to follow. "Since the war.” said the Miuister, “it has been accepted as an axiom of national economics that Island Countries should not be dependent on Overseas Supplies for their timber. It has been stated by competent authorities that at the present rate of consumption the indigenous timber supplies of New Zealand will be practically exhausted by 1965. and that the Dominion's annual requirements by that date will be approximately 700.000.000 board feet. Now. where is this timber to | come from? It will not be available I from our present chief sources of Over- | seas Supplies—Canada and United States—for the authorities of those countries inform us that they will themselves be short of timber and will have none to export. They have both already started to import timber from the Baltic States. It will, therefore, be agreed that it is highly desirable that we should produce our own supplies