PASTORAL LANDS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 128, 26 February 1940, Page 5

PASTORAL LANDS

EXCESSIVE GRAZING AND BURNING OFF The chief cause of deterioration of high country grassland areas in the South Island and in some inland parts of Hawke's Bay is thp absence of any regulation of grazing. Excessive burning over of grassland is also a major factor in the exposure of large areas to. erosion and desiccation, ft has long been apparent here that the totally unrestricted unscientific methods of the. large pastoralists have caused serious deterioration of very considerable areas of tussock land. The >hecp graziers have dealt with millions of acres of hill country after their own primitive methods, with the result that the roots of. the native grass have . been damaged and destroyed by annual or more frequent burning-off to induce new growth. Over-grazing by sheep has ruined several large runs covering watersheds, and floods and erosion are among the results of such ignorant methods of pnstoralists. It is fitting to refer here to a recent announcement that cattle graz ing is to be tried as an experiment on a large area of deteriorated land which has been reduced to nonusable condition by prolonged overstocking with sheep and by repeated burrnng-off. Bat as this country is a waTershed several thousands of feet above sea level, where Marlborough and Nelson provinces meet, it would seem wiser to leave it alone and let it revert to bush and other vegetation as a protective forest area. All such misused high country Avill restore itself in. time if it is simpl} 7 left alone.