MAN AND THE LAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23181, 20 April 1945, Page 4

MAN AND THE LAND

Most Important Human Relationship Address By Dr. Jobberns “The most important and fundamental of all human relationships is that between man and his land,’ said Dr. G. Jobberns, Professor of Geography at Canterbury University College and chairman oi the Soil Conservation Committee of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, in an address given at Temuka on Wednesday evening. 'The soil is the basis of our life and we must strive toward a sounder relationship with the land, not only for cur rural population, but for city people as well. We must stop wasting our resources for present gain and look further ahead to the future.” In introducing the speaker, Dr. P. R. Woodhouse, chairman of the South Canterbury Catchment Board, said that Dr. Jobberns held rather a unique position in that he occupied the only chair of geography in any New Zealand University. To those interested in the effects of climate on rivers and on problems connected with the conservation of soil. Dr. Jobberns could bring world-wide knowledge on these subjects. Dr. Jobberns first dealt with the evolution of plant and animal life. In these natural adjustments. he said, a state of balance or equilibrium was reached, and plant and animal society took on a character of permanence. This balance was not normally upset unless some disaster changed the character of the habitat, but. when man came on the scene, he invariably tried to improve on Nature. Very often he overreached himself because he was not aware enough of the importance of the balance evolved by Nature. The main trouble seemed to be that man could not see far enough ahead and placed present gain before future welfare. “Man’s economic relation to the land is particularly important.” said Dr. Jobberns. “as well as his attitude to it. This relationshin and altitude to the land has been changed with the rise of industrialism and the development of world commerce. Instead of being the basts of the local so-ietv. the soil has virtual l ” become in it”” 11 a commodity of world commer"». This is specially so in the lands affected by th" great migrations of Fnrnpeav n«w>le characteristic of the last century.” Long Term View Needed After picturing New Zealand as it was when ®ir lorefathers came to it less than luo years ago, Dr. jobberns went on to say that it was natural tnai the needs and wants of to-day should seem of most importance. We did not measure these needs and wants over a long period of time. Relatively few of us seemed to be able to take a long term view of the future. In 109 years man had transformed the whole countryside in New Zealand, and in doing so had made many mistakes. It w r as now time that we paused to take stock of what we had and how we were going to preserve the heritage of the land cur fathers had bequeathed to us. We had a duty to posterity to pass it on in as good condition as we found it. Dr. Jobberns then sketched the agricultural economy of China, where a stable agricultural economy based on the land had been built up over about 40 centuries, and each rural family got a bare subsistence standard of living from a minute parcel of land. He contrasted this with the “lettuce bowl” of California, where nothing could be seen for miles but rows of lettuce and the people who worked the land lived, sometimes in extreme squalor, in adjacent towns. This land, he said, was merely a lettuce factory owned bv companies and worked by migrant labour with no close attachment to the soil and no interest in the country. To those who suggested carrying mechanism of agriculture to its extreme, this was an, example which came as a warning. We, in New Zealand, stood somewhere between these extremes, but we must remember that New Zealand’s agricultural economy had been built un on the assumption of an inexhaustible market for the products of the soil in agricultural Britain.

Our Commercial Outlook "What I must emphasise as most significant in all this discussion,” continued the speaker, “is man’s artituae to the land. We have developed a sort of commercial agriculture with our economy based mainly on the export value of the produce of our grassland and livestock. Too often the land has been little more to us than a commodity of commerce in itself. Too often people have merely taken up farming as a speculative venture. They have ootained what they could from it during their period of occupation and then passed it on at a profit after its productive capacity has been depleted. "Much land in New Zealand has been abandoned.” explained Dr. Jobberns. “and it has probably been this experience of abandoning marginal land that has led to a present attitude of pessimism about the prospects of future development. I believe that, with the application of science, modern machinery and community effort, there is still much to be done in the way of the more intensive use of our better land. It is fashionable to talk now of days of planning for a new order, but too many of us think of this in terms of development of our cities and towns and the growth and location of secondary industry. “The basis of our living is our land aud our livestock.” concluded Dr. Jobkerns. “It will continue to be so for a long time. What we want nationally is a better attitude for a rural life. There is no real pressure of population on our resources of reasonably good rural land. We look to our untidy. neglected, wood-infested and sometimes dejected looking countryside and deplore the drift of our youth to the city. Especially is this drift to our large cities in the north. Our distribution of people as between country and town is becoming lopsided, and we are in danger of losing sight of our fundamental truths, that the economy and social health of our cities is ultimately tied to the economic and social health of the rural countryside. They stand or fall together.”