The Evils of Deforestation.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 25, 23 June 1909, Page 58

The Evils of Deforestation.

Continued from page 21. it- has overtaken many other lands, if we disregard the warnings of history and the recorded experience of the past, and recklessly destroy our forests for the sake of a little temporary gain. A Plea for Caution, At this juncture I am well aware that lam likely to be met with the question: * Bo you really mean that we ought never to cut down bush; and if you do mean it, what will become of the timber industry, and how is the country to be settled?’ I reply that there is no reason why a rational policy of conservation should not be perfectly consistent with the maintenance of a large timber trade and with the steady progress and development of the country. The difficulty is that our bush is being cut away in places where it ought to be preserved, on land that can never be of much use for any other purpose, and that the process of deforestation everywhere is being hurried on with reckless extravagance and haste. It is easy to find a large amount of evidence in support of this statement. In an article on our •"Vanishing Forests,” contributed by Mr P. J. O'Regan a few months ago to the “New Zealand Times,” it is pointed out that in various parts of New Zealand “hill country is being opened for settlement in complete disregard of the grave consequences that must ensue.” What those results must be in the way of erosion and denudation and floods, I have already tried to explain, and these facts are fully appreciated by Mr O’Regan. He adds that in many localities “hill country has been and will be surveyed and thrown open to settlement that, as a matter of the highest publie policy, should be left as it is.” When Mr. O’Regan tells us that especiallv in clearing bush and opening up land in Nelson and Westland, "‘the course at present being followed is in the last degree subversive of the publie interests.” he is not in any sense exaggerating the«e evils. And his judgment is amply confirmed by official pronouncements on this question. The Case of Westland.

I may quote from some remarks on the deforestation of Westland that appear in the report on State forests issued bv the Lands Department for 1905-6. The writer points out that as a large part of the West Coast is very inaccessible—consisting of narrow valleys with steep, shingly hillsides—it is practically impossible to cut out the timber there at remunerative rates. “In these deep valleys and on the lands above 2000 ft. in altitude, it would be a fatal mistake to allow timber to be removed. It is not the actual removal of mature trees which is to be feared, but the wholesale destruction that inevitably follows. In felling trees the tops and branches are left to rot or burn, to remove the timber tracks are necessarily

opened out. and are made use of by cattle which destroy and keep down undergrowth, the thin coating of vegetable deposit is gradually washed away, and in time nothing is left but barren hillsides, from which the rainwater pours off to swell streams and rivers with disastrous effects in the lower va leys.” The report goes on to deal with danger of floods, and their destruction of valuable soil, and after dwelling upon the reckless extermination of silver pine, and yellow pine on land that is absolutely worth’ess for any other purpose, it comes to the conclusion that owing to the destruction of the bush along the river banks, “ irreparable damage is being done.” and that “the sources of rivers and streams ” should be protected against the depredations of the timber trade. It happens that West-land, from its conformation and topographical peculiarities, is especially liable io injury through the removal of the indigenous bush; and if such precautions are not taken in time, one may safely predict that the extermination of its trees will convert the whole country into a barren and deso’ate waste, forbidding, unproductive, and uninhabitable. But the danger is not confined to Westland alone; and in all parts of New Zealand we may find impressive indications of the injury at ready inflicted by the reckless timber extirpation of our bush. I cannot elose these remarks more appropriately than by a quotation from one of the valuable reports supplied by Mr- T. E. Donne to the Tourist Department whilst it was under his control. “ The forests were, and are still, destroyed unmercifully without any thought of the future. Bush was burnt down on absolutely valueless land, which was thoroughly unfit for settlement. The soil was thus deprived of the onlv good vegetation it could produce. Very often neither the cut bush nor the ground had any commercial value whilst the bush, if spared, would have preserved at least the eminently attractive picture of the landscape.” Even if there were nothing else about our native bush worth saving, but its incomparable beauty, it would, as Mr. Donne has elsewhere written, “be a crime against the nation” to cut it down without very solid material reasons. But when its destruction is often not only profitless, but terribly and disastrously injurious to the highest interests of the country, we may well wonder at the careless self-com-placeney with which we have come to tolerate these ruthless raids upon our native timber.

New Zealand's Timber Prospects. This statement of the case might be prolonged almost indefinitely by the accumulation of further evidence. But I must be content with what has been already written, as to the direct losses and injuries sustained by this country through deforestation. And if there are not arguments of sufficient force to compel public attention and to induce Government to take in hand the conservative, the protective, and the reconstructive work of Forestry, I may appeal once more to the fact that has so far dene more than anything else to arouse publie interest in this momentous question—the imminent and almost inevitable timber famine. I am aware that I am now retraversing ground that I have already to some extent covered, but to apply the moral of the general argument to the special case of New Zealand it is necessary to indulge in a certain amount of recapitulation. And I am encouraged in this course by recent experiences that have taught me the difficulty of convincing even people who might be expected to realise the facts of the case, that the world’s timber supply or even our own stock of indigenous timber is nearing the point of exhaustion. The published reports of the evidence taken by the Timber Commission which has just closed its investigations here, reveal the interesting fact that a large number of people personally interested in the timber trade, are entirely ignorant of the narrow limits of our own timber resources, and have the vaguest possible idea of the state of things that prevails in the timber trade elsewhere- Those optimistic people who talk wildly about inexhaustible supplies of timber in this country, may be invited to consider the statistics published by the Lands Department or to reflect upon the evidence submitted by Mr H. P. Kavanagh to the Timber Commission. According to this gentleman. who, as chief timber expert for Auckland district, may be fairly presumed to know what be is talking about,

our stock of kauri will be'exhausted six or seven years’ time, and our other timber in between 20 and 25 years. This I take to be as near a final and conclusive statement on the subject as wo can hope to get; and even a professional optimist must admit that it is not * particularly cheerful outlook. But this is not the worst of it. When Mr. Milroy, secretary of the Kauri Timber Company, giving evidence before tha Timber Commission, was asked what was going to happen after our own stock of timber gave out, he replied cheerfully enough that "in 30 years' time, assuming "that our milling timber supplies were exhausted, he did not think it would be against the best interests of the Dominion to depend on timbers imported from abroad.” But the vital feature of the whole situation is the painful bus indisputable truth that long before Thirty years have expired New Zealand will find herself unable to draw upon other countries to supply her "needs for the sufficient reason that they will require all, and more than all, their own timber for themselves. The World's Outlook.

For, I repeat it most emphatically, the timber famine which has already begun to make itself felt in New Zealand is only pne phase of a great change which is rapidly sweeping over the face of the world at large. In every land to which commerce has access to-day, the demand for timber is increasing out of all proportion to the supply, and this means that the timber famine which is already within striking distance of our own country, is destined soon to be literally and absolutely world-wide. On this point I have already compiled a good deal of evidence in my earlier articles; but to drive the argument home I must refer once more to the condition of the two countries which were endowed by Nature with forests more bounteously than any other land—the United States and Canada. Of the rapid disappearance of timber in the United States, I have already spoken at length, but I venture to add a, little further corroborative testimony. Mr. M. Seckendorff tells us, “We are now consuming our forests at the rate of about 45 square miles per day. We take from them, not counting the loss by fire, three and a-half times their yearly growth. We take 40 cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown.” For those who like to take their statistics seasoned with picturesque facts, I submit the following: “Secretary Will, of the American Forestry Association, has calculated that we consume each year enough timber to floor the entire State of Delaware; enough cooperage stock to build a rick four feet wide and four feet high extending from New York city to Colorado; enough firewood to make * one mile eube; and enough railway ties to build a railroad around the globe, with a side track across the Atlantic.” To descend to figures again, the total yearly growth of the American forests is less than seven billion cubic feet. “We take from our forests yearly,” says Mr.. Seckendorff, “twenty-three billion cubic feat. Each year, therefore, we consume sixteen billion cubic feet more than can be replaced by Nature itself. In short, we are living on our capital. As forest fires and other destructive agencies, however, seem quite certain to off-set new growth, the end of our forests, unless present tendencies are checked, is indicated in from 20 to 30 years.” In a, similar strain Mr. R. Cronan points out that the forest land of the United States has been reduced from 62 to 28 per cent of the total area. Even if the Americans do not increase the rate of consumption, their timber supply cannot last more than from 30 to 40 years. But Mr. Cronan thinks it likely" that the consumption at the normal rate of increase will practically annihilate the American stock of timber within from 14 to 20 years. Thus he concludes that the Americans are dangerously near a timber famine, “that will strike at tha very foundation of some of the country’s most important industries”

What Will America Do? What such a famine would mean to the industries, and therefore to tho workers, of a great commercial country like America, it is very difficult to conceive. The timber trade —the fourth in rank of the American staple industries—• pays about £30,000,000 a year in wages, and employs about 2,000,000 people. The timber utilised by the railroads for their sleepers represent, with renewals, an investment of more than £60,000,000. The mines use up 400,000,000 cubic feet of

timber every year. The anthracite nines alone consume a cubic foot of timber for every ton of coal brought to the ■urface. In one great copper mine alone £5 feet of Oregon pine take the place t>f every ton of ore extracted. To descend to relatively unimportant industries, it may be enough to point out that the single item of matches means the destruction of 10,000 acres of forest every year. The consumption of timber for the manufacture of paperpulp is another form of the demand for timber that has in recent years in America reached almost appalling dimensions. Mr. Whipple, the Forest Commissioner for New York State,.has lately calculated that the American newspapers consume everv year the equivalent of two billion- feet of timber in the form of pulp. The average Sunday edition of the New York “Worltf’ requires just about 30 acres of timber to furnish pulp for its paper; and the ‘’World” is only one of 456 Sunday papers in the United States. Last year the United States Census Bureau issued a bulletin, in which it is stated that newspapers and periodicals in the United States Used up in one year the timber from over 100.000 acres. “Every working flay in the year the forests yielded approximately 1.765.000 feet of timber to be transformed into newspapers and magazines for the people of the United States.” Perhaps some of these facts and figures may help us to understand what the American official authorities mean when they assert that a terrible timber famine is already imminent and near. Can Canada Helpt

To casual or uninstrueted observers it may seem at first sight that the United States could possibly evade the danger by doing what some people here expect New Zealand to do when the Crisis comes—pass the burden along for eomeone else to bear. But I repeat that the time is rapidly approaching When neither New Zealand nor England nor the United States will be able to depend upon any other country’s timber supply, because every country will want all the timber it can grow or save for itself. In America there was some years ago a general impression that when their own forests gave out the people of the United States could safely look to Canada; and this notion has, I observe, taken root and flourished even in New Zealand. While the Timber Commission was sitting in Auckland, it was confidently asserted by a witness who ought to have known better that “there was enough milling timber in British Columbia to supply the whole world for a hundred years.” I was glad to see this statement promptly contradicted by one of our leading timber millers, who quoted the following interesting passage from an article on the prospects of the Canadian timber supply, written by a member of the faculty of forestry in the University of Toronto: “For years we have been talking about Canada’s ’lnexhaustible timber resources.’ without knowing whether the statement was true or false. During the last ten years, though, enough information has been obtained to show that the amount of our standing timber of commercial sizes is very much less than we fondly imagined it was. The accessible saw-log timber is estimated by Dr. Fernow at six hundred billion feet board measure—enough to supply the United States for 1-5 years.” Now, Dr. Fernow is one of the most eminent authorities on forestry in America, and if he tells us that Canada has no more than enough timber to supply the demands of the United States for 15 years, we may surrender at once all our vague notions about “inexhaustible supplies” and our vain hope of being able to get all the timber we want from Canada. As a matter of fact, Canada has taken the alarm already, and is now contemplating legislation to check the destruction of her forests and the unrestricted export of timber to supply the needs of her American neighbours. And this is the attitude already assumed by practically every other country in the world, in view of the constantly increasing demand upon its stock of indigenous trees. The Coming Crisis.

So far as we in New Zealand are concerned, we must therefore look forward to the necessity for facing the coming timber famine with our own strength alone. And what such a famine might really mean to us all I have endeavoured jflready to indicate. Perhaps the mod instructive commentary that I can sup-t-y upon my arguments is contained

in a statement recently published by one of the foremost authorities on timber in the world—Mr. Gifford Pinchot, the Chief of the Forest Service of the United States. He asserts that “the United States has already crossed the verge of a timber famine so severe that its blighting effects will be felt in every household in the land.” He estimates that, at the present rate of consumption, the supply of timber in the United States will be exhausted in 30 years. “The lumber business, now the fourth greatest industry in the colony, will disappear. All forms of building industries will suffer. Mining will become vastly more expensive, and there v. ill be a corresponding rise in coal and iron. The railways, unless a substitute for the wooden sleeper is found, will be profoundly affected, and the cost of transportation will rise. Farming will be more expensive. Water power for lighting, manufacturing, and transportation will be affected. “Irrigated agriculture will suffer most of all, for the destruction of the forests means the loss of the waters as surely as night follows day. With the rise in the cost of producing food, the cost of food itself will rise. Commerce in general will necessarily be affected by the difficulties of the primary industries upon which it depends. In a word, when the forests fail.-the daily life of the average citizen will inevitably feel the pinc-h on every side, and the forests have already begun to fail.” Such is the prospect that the most eminent expert in America depicts for its people, and such, in a modified degree, must- be our own experience if we persistently refuse to heed such warnings as these, and to prepare against the evil day while yet there is time. Our Only Hope. Enough of the Evils of Deforestation! and now once more for the remedy! I tave shown already in these articles rot only that it is a national duty to replant the forests as they are cut down, but that the work of Reforestation and Afforestation can be carried out at a large financial profit to the individual or the State. The experience of other countries has proved this incontestably, and the few years during which our Forestry Department has been making its little tentative efforts at tree-growing here, have shown that even on a very moderate expenditure a regular and substantial return could be speedily secured for sueh an investment of public money. The evidence on this point that I have compiled and set before my readers should, I venture to believe, convince any impartial person that a national system of Afforestation, conducted on a large scale, and managed on scientific lines, could not only avert foi us the many evils that follow on the destruction of the native bosh, but could obviate the otherwise inevitable timber famine, furnish profitable employment for a large number of workers, and provide a highly lucrative investment for a considerable amount of public capital. Probably I have said enough to justify my contentions, though I have by no means exhausted the list of possible arguments in favour of reforesting the country. I might have referred to the value of our water supply as a source of electrical energy, and the need for conserving it; for surely, at a time when the whole world is striving to utilise water power to generate electricity, it is a suicidal policy for a country so generously endowed in this way to risk the very existence of rivers and waterfalls by recklessly destroying the forests that provide the reservoirs, from which these streams are fed. And I might have enlarged upon the value of the bush as a means of checking and controlling the movement of sand, and the urgent necessity for planting and replacing the bush in districts where, as along the West Coast of the North Island, sand drifts are constantly encroaching upon valuable land. The well-known example of France and the large revenue that she has derived for many years from the plantation of her sand-dunes, should be good enough precedent for any colonial government to follow. And I might have quoted the recently published report of the British Commission on Erosion and Reforestation to show that at Home a national scheme of Afforestation on a gigantic scale is now contemplated as a remedy for unemployment. But these are in a sense side issues, and I am willing to stake the case for Reforestation and Afforestation in New Zealand solely on the pleas that I have already eo often recapitulated—the rapid dis-

appearance of our native bush, the urgent necessity for replenishing our stock of timber, the imminence of the approaching timber famine, and the terribly devastating effects of the extirpation of forest trees, as seen in the denudation and erosion of hill sides, the destruction of fertile soil, the drying up of streams, the silting up of rivers and harboure, the regular recurrence of disastrous floods, and the deterioration in the climatic, meteorological, and hygienic sense of every country, which has cnee sacrificed its natural heritage of trees without making any adequate effort to replace them. A Last Appeal, What then shall we do to combat these dangers? The answer is indicated, I hope with sufficient clearness in all that I have already written. We have a Forestry Department and we have already inaugurated a system of afforestation. We must extend our operations and spend more money over the work than before. We must not be content with a few thousand acres, but we must lay our plans on a generous scale, for the establishment in all parts of the country of large plantations of quick growing and valuable timber trees. We must as far as possible protect our State forests against fire, by employing large numbers of rangers; for though this may seem an expensive process, the result will amply repay Us. We must prevent the indiscriminate clearing of the bush on land that is really unfit for settlement, and under no circumstances should we permit timber to be cut away along the upper courses and headwaters of our rivers. But above everything else we must plant, plant, plant, and encourage everybody who owns land to plant, by every means in our power. Arbour Day is still in theory a public institution here, but it sadly needs the add of a little popular enthusiasm. Of course, the indiscriminate planting of worthless trees in unsuitable localities is simply waste of time. But our Forestry Department is in a position to circulate any quantity of useful information on sueh subjects, and to control and direct such efforts at afforestation or reforestation as the people mav choose to make. This great work, as I have already tried to show, is primarily the function of the State; and what money the State expends upon it will soon be repaid tenfold by our immunity from the disastrous losses that deforestation necessarily entails. But the fact that Government has already taken up this work does not relieve individual citizens of their responsibility in the

matter. E r a v. ho possesses a piece of land /aou’d reffect upon these memorable ora* of Stephen Girard: “If I knew that I must die to-morrow, I would plant a tree to-day.” For even if an enlightened sense of self interest does not teach him to regard tree-plant-ing as one of the most profitable occupations he can take up and one of the most lucrative ways in which ho can turn his land to account, every intelligent citizen should realise that he owes it as a duty to his neighbours. his children and his country, to conserve our forest wealth and to replace our trees at least as rapidly as they are cut away. Even on purely selfish groun Is we must admit all this, because even within our own day and generation the timber famine is almost upon us. and the evils that I have endeavoured to describe are already manifesting themselves on every hand. But on such a question as this I do not think that I need appeal to self-interest alone. Even though the injuries that this country must incur through the destruction of the native bush must bear more heavily upon the next generation than on tnis, and even though the benefits of afforestation and reforestation must be secured by our sons and grandsons rather than by ourselves, I do not believe that there are many New Zealanders ready to ask that singularly sordid and futile question “what has Posterity done for us that we should undergo sacrifices and hardships for its sake?” I prefer to believe that in this beautiful land, the vast majority of men and women feel as keenly as I do the responsibility entailed upon us all of leaving our natural heritage no less beautiful and healthy, and fertile and productive; than we found it. To those who feel the truth of this, the case for afforestation and reforestation needs no elaborate argument to enforce it. And even those who pride themselves on taking a sternly practical view of life, and who refuse to prefer romantic sentiment to material gain may well consider if on such evidence as I have laid before them, the policy of afforestation is not urged upon them only by a sense of public duty, but by a sense of the necessity for that self-preservation which, as we are proverbially and justly told, is the first of Nature. (The End.)