THE FLOOD DEMON

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15028, 28 August 1922, Page 3

THE FLOOD DEMON

HCW IT CAN BE LOOSED. EFFECTS OF DEFORESTATION. Several officers of the Forestry Department have just returned from i visits of inspection and investigation J in various purls of the North Island, ! anil a statement based on their reports indicates "the necessity for calling an immediate liaJt in the indis(Tiniinalc attacks being made on the forests of the Dominion, especially on the mountains, where the trees break the rainfall and allow the' water to soak into the earth instead of tearing down the mountain sides in torrents." Depletion of Water Supply. The statement says: "The surest way io produce lluods is to see that an raimail runs downhill over steep surfaces without, having an opportunity to sink into the, soil. This statement appeared recently in an article dealing with cause and effect when examining into the origin of devastating river Hoods in America. It holds good in every part of the globe, and has an exact parallel in the case of our own main rivers. An investigation into Hood statistics in the North Island over a period of years will show that this menace is increasing steadily, and that we are rapidly approaching a stage when navigable rivers will be no longer useful as such but will alternate between the danger points of serious depletion of water supply and disastrous torrents sweeping everything before them.

"Had a special board of engineering experts been set up in the pioneering ! days to formulate a policy of deliber- j ate destruction towards our rivers and forests ,lhey could not have shaped things better. River valleys have i been swept bare of trees, and the head-water forests carved into with an utter disregard of consequences. i "When the natural sequence fol- i lows in the shape of raging floods. ' people wonder why it is that every j year sees greater destruction wrought by this unleashed demon, and raise & i cry for protective hanks and similar measures, ignoring the tact that this particular trouble, like every other, must be attacked at its source. Scrap the Steamers. "Ignore this question a little longer, and arrangements may be confidently made to scrap the river steamers of the Wanganul and to give up all hope of navigating the Waikato with barges and small craft. As a tourist attraction these rivers will practically cease to exist, and will ! yearly become a greater terror to the i denizens of the plains and coastal ' towns. This is not a scare "icture, but a moral certainty proven many times over in all countries and all ;

climes. "The remedy lies In immediately ,' tackling the trouble at its source. The great central watershed of the . North Island must be zealously ; guarded from further denudation of its remaining forest cover. Not a tree should be cut from it without careful supervision and special danger points along the river valleys should be reforested without delay. -. , "The kingpin of our remedial policy should be the protection and replacing of as much of the destroyed natural cover as is practicable, thus regulating the distribution of rainfall, and this in the end will he found a cheap price Io pay for the safety of our national well-being."