TECHNICAL FORESTERS.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17387, 27 March 1928, Page 5

TECHNICAL FORESTERS.

FORMATION OF INSTITUTE. PROFESSIONAL HALLMARK. A FAR-REACHING EVENT. At a meeting held at Rotorua on March 13, 1928, a forward step Mas taken which will have a far-reaching effect on the future of forestry in the Dominion. Present at the meeting were almost all the leading technical forest officers of the Dominion. Mr. L. Macintosh Ellis, Director of Forestry, was voted to the chair, and apologies for absence were received from Messrs. Owen Jones, of New Zealand Perpetual. Forests, Ltd., and Foweraker and Hutchinson, of the staff of the Canterbury College School of Forestry. The meeting was the outcome of some eighteen months of carehh and deliberate preliminary work no the part of members of the profession, and resulted in the inauguration of a new body which will be known as the New Zealand Institute of Foresters. The accepted object and aim of the Institute is "to further the development of technical forestry and the interests of the profession of forestry in the Dominion of New Zealand." The occupation of forestry is one calling for wide scientific and practical knowledge, in addition to experiende. judgment and .skill. For the protection of the public, with interests amounting at the present time to. millions of pounds;sterling in State and and proprietary forestry in the Dominion, proper qualification is as necessary to the forester as to the civil engineer, the architect, or the surveyor. ... .

A carefully drawn up and conservative ' constitution was adopted. The constitution was eclectic in nature, being based on constitutions of all the existent similar bodies in the Englishs'peaking world. The meeting then-re-solved itself into the first annual general meeting of the newly-formed Institute; office-bearers and members of •council were elected, and a few simple by-laws were adopted. The election or officers and members of Council resuletd as follows:—President, Mr. L. Macintosh Ellis, -B.Sc.F. (Toronto), C.S.F.E., S.A.F., Director Of Forestry, Wellington; vice-president, Professor H. Hugh Corbitt,, B.Sc. (Edinburgh), B.Sc. (Adelaide), Professor of Forestry, Auckland University College; secretary and treasurer, Mr. Frank W. Foster, B.A. (New Zealand), B.Sc.F. (Edinburgh), assistant conservator of forests. Auckland; members of coun- s cil for the North Island, Mr. Arnold Hanssen, B.A. (Christiariia), M.F. (Yale), chief inspector of forestry, Wellington; Mr. Wm. T. Morraison, conservator of forests, Rotorua; members of council for the South Island, Mr. A. D. ' McGavocln conservator of forests, Hokitika; and Mr. C M\ Smith, M;A. (New Zealand), B.Sc.F. (Edinburgh), conservator of forests, Nelson. "

To ensure that the governing policy' be both continuous and at the same time safeguarded against apathy and stagnation, a somewhat novel article of constitution provides for. biennial election of office-bearers as against annual election of members of council.

Membership of the Institute will be of four grades: Honorary, ordinary, associate and student. Admission to all'; grades will be elective, and onlyordinary members will have voting powers in this or in any other activity of the Society. Honorary members will never exceed twenty in number, and not more than four will be elected in one year. Ordinary members must be qualified for election by both technical training and,by a period of active practical work, or for a very limited time in special cases, by a long < and successful period of practical work only. Associate membership will demand the same qualifications but with a somewhat, shorter practical experience, and after the first six months, will be a necessary prior qualification for admission' to ordinary membership. Presentation of a professional thesis will be required for transference from the grade of associate to that of ordinary member. It follows from this careful selection of members that the present Institute is small in members and will be likely to remain comparatively small for some years. Present members stand to derive but little x>ersonal benefit from their efforts "but the whole organisation builds, as all forestry must build,, for posterity. It is hoped that one of the Institute's chief activities will be the publication of an annual volume of papers of a technical nature. This should serve future foresters as an invaluable authentic record of conditions which,' by then, will have passed completely away and must in many cases provide the key to future problems at present unpredictable. Every present day forester engaged in the administration of an exploitable forest or in the utilisation of a previously used soil, knows well and to his cost the delay, the endless speculation on the history of the present condition of affairs —be it the history of the timber rights, of the useless wood association, or of the soil conditions. - - Candidates for membership in the Institute must be proposed by an ordinary members and seconded by an ordinary member. Charter members comprise, in addition to those already mentioned, the following:-—Mr. E. Phillips Turner (Secretary of Forestry, Wellington)-. 'Miss Mary Sutherland, BSc F. (Forest Service, Rotorua); Mr R. B. Steele, B.Sc. (Department of "Agriculture. Tasmania, recently of the New Zealand Forest Service) ; Mr. H A Gouldie (Administrator to New Zealand Redwoods. Ltd., Rotorua), and Messrs. R. D.. Campbell, S. A. C. Darby, D. MacPherson and W. (*• Morrison (Conservators of Forests at Auckland. Invercargill, Palmer ston North and Christchurch respectively).