MINISTER FOR FORESTRY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 189, 30 April 1918, Page 4

MINISTER FOR FORESTRY

SIR FRANCIS BELL APPOINTED. It is announced that Sir Francis Bell has becotno Minister of Forestry. This appointment was foreshadowed by the Prime Minister jocently in response to representations made by the New Zealand Forestry League, which urged that tho creation of a Forestry Department was the first etcj) towards the proper utilisation of the timber resources of tho Dominion. "Wo aro fortunate in having oir Francis Bell at I ho head of tho Forestry Department," writes Sir James Wilson, president of (lie league, iu a pamphlet just issued. "Ho is keenly alive to tho necessity for immediate actiou if ho can but get his colleagues to agree with him. The ideal position would be that a trained man should bo appointed under Sir Francis; that every remaining acre of bußh left in New Zealand should bo demarcated, and that which is mora suitable for settlement than tor forest should pass on to tho Lands Department to be disposed «[; that bush wluch is more suitable for forest with a ™ timber should lie under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Department, and made inalienable. There is yet immense wealth in our nativo forests. If we can conservo that unit|iio timber—kauri—alone from destruction, wo shall hn,ve <1°» 0 «; work. There aro immense possibilities in the growth of young kauri trees lo take the place of those cut down. Wo have evidence, that their growth is than has been generally supposed, ine Forestry Department will have much information to gather and deduction to mako on'the kauri forest and their growth alone. There is akomuoli learn of our remaining forests by trained observers."