AFFORESTATION PLAN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 24, 21 October 1937, Page 4

AFFORESTATION PLAN

Our Own Correspondent.^

Areas That Should Never Have Been Cleared

DEPARTMENT'S REP0RT

(From

WELLINGTON, Last Night. "The Lands and Survey Department has continued to gjve careful attention to tbe necessity for bush preservation and the protection of the high and steep country gcnerally, and iii this most important in.tter is working in riose co-nperatio^ wjth tbo Stat-t; Foresl Service," st'ies the >fport of the department i'cr the ve.xr endod A arch 31 last, u 'uch Was preseal :d to the House of Representatives. "Far too much country has ia the past been cleared of its forrst cov.r iu au endeavour to increase farming arcas. It must be frankly admitted that Ousli has been destroyed on hundreds of thousands of acres of steep lountry, which, at the time, was regard h1 ae sujtable for settlement, but which paiaful experience has shown should never have been touched. Such country will not be opened' for settlement in the future} and already arrangements haye been made for extensive areas of Cro-.Yn . land to be set aside as permanent State forests and as scer.ic reserves. "An earnest endeavour will. also be made to repair certain mistakee made in the past when pastoral liceuces were granted more or less as a matter of course over extensive areas of high country much of which, in its naturaj state was extremely valuable for water conservation and general protection purposes. It is proposed to make careful review of the run couutry in certaia locaiities, and to refrain,' whenever possible, from granting any further pastoral hcenses over lands that would liave betn better left unleased in the first place."