SAVE THE BUSH

Forest and Bird, Issue 45, 1 August 1937, Page 11

SAVE THE BUSH

PROTECT THE WATERSHEDS. FARMERS’ INSURANCE AGAINST DISASTER.

“ |3LANT trees for your lives,” was the inA junction of a pioneer settler on the Mackenzie Plains, in the South Island. Trees are necessary for timber, firewood, and for shelter. They are needed in great numbers. But in the North Island and about the sources of rivers in the northern part of the South Island, they are needed above all for soil protection for the farming regions below. Bank protection works far down the valleys are absurdly insufficient. Why cannot Government and local bodies take a broad view of the whole problem from mountain watershed down, and begin protection where it is most needed? These remarks are prompted by the news of the recent disastrous flood in North Auckland. Old settlers perceive the blunders of the past, and the far-spread effects, more clearly than most of our farming communities and our local bodies to-day. It is in the ultimate resort the Government that must grapple with the increasing damage caused by landslips and refractory rivers. They would not have become refractory had an intelligent policy of high-country forest protection been adopted a half-century ago or even later. The present authorities are unfortunately burdened with the task of repairing the stupid and selfish errors of their predecessors. Unfortunately also there is not yet apparent any systematic effort to conserve the bush where it should be conserved. Settlers and sawmillers are stripping the banks of rivers and feeding streams of the only kind of vegetation that saves the land from ruin. The process has gone too far for recovery in some places; but in many parts of the north the bush can be regenerated, and in other parts the land cries out for the planting of protective trees. Even manuka and other despised “scrub” are potential saviours of the land. Every settler should be required to grow some timber, for protective purposes and other needs. This is advocated now by some of the more enlightened settlers, and wisely they recommend the vegetation native to the soil.