Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22, 1948 SOIL CONSERVATION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 98, 22 September 1948, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22, 1948

SOIL CONSERVATION

A grim and subtle propaganda campaign is being waged by Nature to awaken New Zealanders to the urgency of flood control and soil conservation. Disastrous floods experienced exact .'a toll in human suffering and destruction of property that must be alleviated by national assistance. The Government must insure against this damage and suffering. The only effective insurance policy is a co-ordinated nationwide scheme of wise land use. Floods in the past aroused our statesmen to action; action was taken by Parliament, and the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act }vas passed in 1941. It was realised that .floods may be regarded as the periodic discharge of chronic wounds inflicted on the land in the past. , These floods are symptoms of an organic disease of the land; they are the consequences of violently altering the vegetation and the soil during the past century. The disciplining of the land in order to convert it from wilderness to farm land upset the balance between climate, slope and vegetation achieved patiently by nature during millions of years, with the consequent loss of a stability of the soil itself. It has been replaced by exotic grasses and crops that create a new set of condi + ions over entire catchments. The. vegetation protection is removed continuously. The latter is gone and the soil becomes compact and unabsorbent. The rain is no longer absorbed as it falls, nor can it infiltrate quickly into that great natural reservoir—the subsoil. On this modern impervious landsurface it runs off. rapidly, carrying exposed soil with it to scour a thousand gullies in its passage downhill 'to augment already overburdened streams and to swell the torrents that produce high floods. The river system, adjusted carefully by nature, is •thrown out of balance and can no longer cope with flood waters that were once berieficient and built up our richest alluvial land. We must marshal the forces of this nation to halt this vicious and increasingly devastating cycle being enacted in our own country. Armed with the knowledge that past civilisations have been ruined by similar processes and that this land of ours enjoyed stability a century ago, we must compromise between

production on the one hand and permanence on the other. Over the length and breadth of New Zealand this is'an enormous task comparable with New Zealand’s war effort. It is just as vital to win this war against soil erosion as it was to win the world war, consequently' we mhst make adequate preparations and take appropriate action now that this other war is off our hands.