SOIL CONSERVATION

Chronicle (Levin), 4 June 1946, Page 4

SOIL CONSERVATION

G. L.

ADKIN.

Sir,— As one of tnose who viewed :he films shown last evening at the Horowhenua College assembly hall by the Soil Conservation and River Control Council, illustrating ^he effects of soil erosion and its orevention or amelioration, I ivould be glad to have an explanation of an apparently extraordinary aideed serious, inconsistency in dolicy. The authorities freely admit ..hat'on steep hill country, with a eopious rainfall, a native bush eover is the only perfect protection. Here in Horowhenua we have conirasting terrains of flat farming i lands and steep hill country withj high annual rainfall. Lately there j has been a tendency to put the| onus on the farmer-landowners toi afeguard and protect their owni property. Here in Horowhenua practically the only agent of erosion ■ is the shingle-bearing river, a ser-; ies of them, rising in the Tararua Ranges and crossing the lowland belt. Their destructive effects on: the lowland area is the result of an enormously increased supply of | rock-waste derived from the bushdenuded Tararua 'foothills. As has been admitted every additional acrc of bush felled, or damaged by milling operations, increases the menace. Why then do the authorities, while agitating for soil-erosion prevention, permit the continued felling and milling of the remaining bush-cover of the Tararua Range? Here is the extraordinary inconsistency of policy,, and surely it is obvious. What chance has the lowland farmer of preserving his land from erosion when the. cause of that erosion is remote from his sphere of control? The I onus of preventing or lessening the destruction is surely on the whole community, both Government and people. The supply of foodstuffs to the city-dweller (to whom soil erosipn is largely a rather abstract subject) is wholly derived from the inenaced farm lands, and it should be foreseen that those supplies may be eliminated by the rnaio^ distruction of arable land, while the farmer may still have a few remaining acres on which to get a meagre living for himself. I trust, Sir, that some satisfactory explanation will be given of the. present inconsistent policy of simultaneous bush destruction and soil conservation. Yours etc..

Levin, June 1.