EDITORIAL Native Forests’ Crisis

Forest and Bird, Issue 107, 1 February 1953, Page 2

EDITORIAL Native Forests’ Crisis

6 4 A CRISIS has been reached in the evolution of forest policy” dramatically comri mences the Annual Report of the Director of Forestry for 1952, thus bringing startlingly into the open the pass which our indigenous forests have reached. The Report says that according to the National Forest Inventory of 1923 New Zealand should now possess' 32,000,000,000 board feet of indigenous softwoods but the new National Forest Survey shows beyond all doubt that it has less 'than one fifth of this quantity, viz. 5,600,000,000 board feet. At the present rate of cutting these will be exhausted in less than eleven years in the North Island and less than twenty years in the South Island. . These figures come as a shock. They mean that in less than 150 years we have, except for our national parks and scenic reserves, almost entirely swept away, or replaced with exotics, a covering which it took Nature untold ages to create. Plan for the North The periods of exhaustion given above are, of course, calculated at the present r ate of cutting. The Forest Service’s plan is to curtail production of native timbers in the North Island by at least 20,000,000 board feet annually, until it reaches in the early 19605, an annual figure of only 20,000,000 board feet, or less than 10 per cent of the present cut. This would have the effect of-extending the life of the indigenous forests for another fifty years, certainly better than the eleven years at the present rate, but after all only putting off the evil day. Action in the South q That plan is for the North Island; the Report gives no such specific plan for the South Island. Shortly after the issue of the Report, however, the Director of Forestry made a dramatic announcement. The Minister of Forests had shortly before stated m the House that “it may be necessary in the near future arbitrarily to determine the uses of timber in this country so that a crisis can be avoided”. The Director’s announcement was that his Department did not intend to offer any timber areas in South Westland to milling companies for some considerable time. This announcement quite understandably, caused considerable protest from the local bodies in the area,’ and ——some. 200 men having shortly afterwards been given long-term warning to look for other jobs—from the workers’ organisations. It was, however, supported by the West Coast Sawmillers’ Association which agreed that these irreplaceable resources must only be used for the most essential purposes, and an output gradually diminishing from the present wasteful cut must be its goal thus extending the workable life of the forests. At the time of going to Press, negotiations between the interested parties and the Government were still proceeding. Meanwhile the Timber Advisory Production Committee, set up under the Forests Act, is earnestly considering the conserving of indigenous timber supplies. Necessity for Substitutes foreseen Reverting to the Report, we read that in the years of the National Forest Inventory, previously mentioned, even at the then computation of the rate of consumption, it was realised that something would have to be done to relieve the drain on indigenous timber in the future—which is our present—and the policy of a “supplementary exotic-forest capital resource” was laid down. From this arose large plantations of exotics as at the Kaingaroa Plains and the replacement or mter-plantmg of much native forest, as cut, with exotics. The purpose of this was to provide a substitute to save a proportion of our native forests. As such it was a statesmanlike plan, but one which we have an uneasy feeling could over-run itself, inasmuch as that if one were not to stop in time one could go on replacing cut-

out native forests with exotics —in order to provide a substitute to save the remaining native forests until there, were no native forests remaining to save That uneasy feeling increases when we read farther on in the Report, as regards the Pureora Forest, that it is the Forest Service’s object to “regulate the cut to give the existing indigenous growing stock a cutting life of fifty years and to establish an exotic growing stock (mainly Douglas fir) over most of the clear-felled area”. Admittedly it goes on to say “Provision is made for the reservation of frontal and riparian strips of forest for scenic and conservation purposes”, but this will be but an edging which the public will see in ignorance of what is —beauty will be but skin deep. ‘ Substitutes As it is well-nigh impossible to remove mature trees with modern machinery without devastating the growing ones which are forming the new forest, and as reversion to old-fashioned leisurely and less destructive methods is out of the question, the only solution, until the technique of the regeneration of natives is further advanced, appears to be to lock up the native forests and substitute other timbers, or entirely other materials such as concrete made with the very shingle which has blocked the rivers owing to the destruction of their protective mantle of bush. In previous Editorials we have already stressed this, coining the proverb “Necessity is the Mother of Substitution” and giving our opinion that preservatised exotics were obviously Substitution No. 1. In the Report the. Director of Forestry urges just that very thing and points out that the prejudice against exotic softwoods is unwarranted and has been caused by shortage, so that hungry buyers' were forced to accept inferior timber, thus giving exotic timber generally a bad name. He states categorically that exotic softwoods, properly selected and treated, will out-last the best of the native timbers, quoting continental experience in this direction. He finally goes on to drive home the moral of our coined proverb by saying that if wood users do not turn to exotic softwoods wherever practical “It will only be a -very short time before they will have to use exotic softwoods for everything, for by that time either the world’s virgin forests of naturally durable softwoods will have been .exhausted or the purchase price of such timber will be so high as to preclude its useage for such purposes”. Decontrol of Timber Prices Actually, the soaring of the price of native timbers would be a most • effective solution and the Report mentions a potential method of bringing this about— decontrol of timber prices. Under control, a war measure, the prices of exotic and native timbers are comparable, and users consequently take the latter wherever possible and even wait for supplies to come forward. Decontrol the prices and the price of natives would soar, forcing users on to exotics, and enabling the Service to realise the principal end of national forest — “the perpetuation of a small but nevertheless important supply of indigenous softwoods for special requirements”. The Service has so far been unable to secure the decontrol. The reasons against it, whatever they are, must be cogent indeed, but we trust the Service will succeed in its objective. ■ Replacement Replacement—replanting—is also a solution and we draw members’ attention to’ the article by Mr. G. A. Walsh, M.P., on page six. Although regeneration of our native, forests to their natural state is an ideal, it involves the complete exclusion of stock in order to preserve the natural undergrowth. Where . this would lock up good farm lands it is not practical. Mr. Walsh writes from the point of view of a farmer and points out that native trees can be satisfactorily grown on farms with protection from stock, for some species, necessary for only a few years in their juvenile-state they, will then provide shelter and in the long run a more worthwhile asset than’ exotics. His contention, accompanied by “chapter and verse” merits consideration.