SPARE THE TREE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2822, 13 July 1916, Page 6

SPARE THE TREE

OUR DISAPPEARING FORESTS

WARNING

• - "The destruction of forests in New Zealand has now reached such a pitch.that the welfare of the oountry is threatened." 8o spoke Mr. D. E. Hutchins, F.R.G.S., late Director of Forestry in South Africa, in the. course of an address on forestry at a meeting held last night of those, interested in the formation of a ■•-■New". Zealand " Forestry, League. '.Mr. ■ Hutxihina pointed out that with tho do- •" Btruction of the forest, river .floods become more severe, and there come about - a waste of good land near tho river beds. Tho lass of its forests, continued the . speaker, is one of the most difficult problems that Now Zealand would have to faoe. Ho outlined at length the work of afforestation that was going on in othfer countries. South Africa, for instance. yraa doing all that was possible to guard ■against the danger. There the native r fbreet is being carefully preserved and worked at a profit, and to cope with the task there is in existence a Forestry Department and a complete system of fbr.cstry. This has been going on for the last S3 yoaTS. The forests of South Africa closely resemble those. of New Zealand, but on tho whole the forests of Afrioa are ! less"valuable than those of New Zealand, . and what i 3 more, the best trees grow 50 per cent, more'slowly. Thoro is, olaimed the speaker, nothing remarkable in what is being done in South' Africa; it is simply what is being done throughout the * civilised world, all.over Europe, .North America, Japan, and, within the last year or two, even China has come into line. What to Mr. , Hutchins appeared • most remarkable was that a country like New Zealand, with . forestry naturally indicated as one of its chief industries, should as yet have .not taken, the first steps in scientific for- > estry. Forestry in Now Zealand,' declared the speaker, has been misjudged by the idea that timber trees here grew e1ow& than those of other countries. As a fact ■ tho growth of tho best timber trees in New Zealand, suoh as rimu and kauri, is considerably faster than is the case in many other countries. In . most countries thoro were to be seen three classes of forests, the wild forest, the cultivated forest, and forest plantations. In this country there i 6 the wild forest and the forest plantations, but the cultivatod forest has been entirely over- . looked. < Owing to a mistaken idea regarding the growth of the native trees in the forests of New Zealand, it has been thought that the native forests should "be cut down .and replaced by plantations ' of oxotic trees. He was certain that had any professional opinion, been taken on the matter it would have been in favour of preserving the native forest. - A careful estimate showed that it would cost 20 millions a year to destroy the native forest in New Zealand and replace it .by artificial timber plantations. And . , this, stated tho speaker, is only to find ' for the present consumption. The expenditure incurred by cultivating forests could be met by the .£I4OO that was going ■ out of the country daily to pay for imported timber. The official figures for 'Australia show that when tho war broke out it was costing that country three and a haif millions yearly for imported timber, ,while the exported timber was valued at only one million yearly. There •was two and a half million pounds worth of hardwood imported into Europe in a year, and he thought Australia could have supplied this had the valuo of her ; forests been properly recognised, "It is" unthinkable" continued Mr. Hutching, "that New naturally a richly endowed forest country, should- have to < import its timber from Australia or the

Ncr'bern Heniispferu In l/'L I future. Ilia economic loss of doing so.with such a. bylky material would lie enormous. Half Aha beauty, too, of this fair laud would' be gone if the forests were all destroyed.' The speaker contended that should that come ahout there wonld also 'lie'a loss of population, and that, too, the pick of the ' manhood of the country. The timber industry, which still employs more hands than any other industry in Now Zealand, would vanish. "The forest-clad mountains of New Zealand," concluded Mr. Hutchine, "are . being turned into sheep walks and cattle runs, •and the- small quantity, of sheep and c-ittlo they carry is nothing, compared' .to the loss of tie national forests and • the; forest-labouring population. Too of-'ten-when the ashes of the burnt forest are washed out there remains not even poor pasture, but only a waste of gorse and'bi'oom or bramble and manuka, suggesting a. good ' land settlement pushed ,to a disastrous extreme."