NATURE AND MAN

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20853, 11 July 1939, Page 10

NATURE AND MAN

CUTTING-OUT THE KAURI THE NATIONAL ASPECT (!By Leo Fanning) What a pity it is that so few New i Zealanders have been in a kauri forf est! Anyone who has been lucky f enough to see one of those huge trees i would he heartily grieved by its * slaughter after the long centuries of t majestic life. " Alas! There is a persistent drive i for a cutting out of the kauri giants even in the State forests of the Northt land. To some persons a great Kauri ; is merely fodder for a saw-mill, something to be turned into so many cubic or square feet of timber. They are eager for a passing profit and care not a jot for Lire loss of a priceless scenic asset. Even the State Forest Service, which should be a courageous saver of the lowering kauris, seems to agree witn the views of materialists who argue that the removal of the biggest trees will give the juniors a chance to grow. ; What a nonsensical notion! What ( did nature do before the white man ’ came to New Zealand and began a 1 reckless, short-sighted war on the l'or- ’ ests? Did she not have big and little trees together? When a time-worn , oiaut fell it made a clearing for suc- | cessors—and thus the forest continued as a perfect living organisation in which many generations had a place. , Is rnan—timber-seeking man—to declare now that Nature did not knowhaw to manage the kauri forests? No sane person can dispute the truth that the scenic value of ine living kauris—even in the material sense of "tourism”—;s imeasurably greater than tlie profit of the dead timber. Indeed, many distinguished visitors to New Zealand have found greater thrills m the kauri torests Ilian among the mountains and lakes, hoi or cold. Monument of Nature A huge kauri tree is more a monument of nuLure than a mountain is, for '■lie kauri is a real child oi Mother . Nature and the mountain is merely a Kind of terrestrial acciueni, Hie oypruduct of a convulsion or other alteraGon uf tiie earth's surface. suppose that a scientist announced ihat lodes of gold were under the peaks of ML. Look, Egniont and Lite •'Rtre ! \\ ould the people of New Zealand allow those noble crests to oe destroyed in order that a metal—winch supplies not one real need of iiunian ine—should be obtainable? "hat a roar of opposition such a proposal would evoke irom the public ! *et, it is just as important from the national viewpoint, to save those . nreatened kauris. When will the people of New Zealand really begin to ippreciate the national value of those Diate kauri lorests? If the present at•tude of apathy continues, the timber’Oekers will have their way. The ■>aws will sing their song of triumph m the bodies of the Kauri grandees. A Struggle For a Living In “Sorrows and Joys of a New Zealand Naturalist,” Mr H. GuthrieMnith gives this gripping glimpse of ihe largest storms wept isle about i four miles long and two wide, ol’ the I Antipodes Group ,about Ji\e hundred miles away from Stewart Island. : “The ] nead of the soggy hollow through i wnich we had half waded terminated ' in low granite outcrops where the re- I ouff of the blast had produced a cus- I hion of recoil, an eddy, an air pocket ’ ut calm. Nearby in comparative ’ quiescence survived the sole arbores- I ounce of the island—a rood or two i of storm-clipped coprosma. Deop i rooted in peat, waist high, stiff and ; rigal, this hard bitten shrub growth , sheltered against Ihe cliffs, moulding itself into lheir configurations, nestling into, adventuring its way into every rounded granite gorge, every grey recess. Upon each twig sturdy and stiff, upon each tiny leaf had the , tempest exerted its uttermost will. As m shoal waters sands are ribbed and patterned by wavelets dancing' above. SO the fancy arose in met that on the storm-worn, storm-shorn surface of the stunted thicket, there could be described, tooled into graven greenery the similitude of a rolling sea or the long wash of a breaking wave. ii n this unresilient, unwrlnklerl arboreal ni'.ii crouched or stood their short how i tegs quite unadapted to this strange stance parka cels of two species Hitherto these birds had blended naturally into an environment of blowy the slipped coprosma. with never a mai, deranged they stood forth like lo ini.ml unexpected buds of some strange cactus growth; out of the shrub itself they seemed shorn in topiary exactitude—yew or box birds, each foot, each little toe visible on the hard impercipient platform”