KAURI GUM SWAMPS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 April 1921, Page 3

K AURI GUM SWAMPS

THE FIRE QUESTION. AUCKLAND, April 8. Vast damage has been done in various years to State assets in the way of the swamps of the North by the ravages of fires, sometimes caused by accident, but more frequently starting from burning necessarily done by gumdiggers, in order to clear away scrub to facilitate their operations. The Porotaniwha swamp, near Houliora has been on fire for the last four or five months, and, writes a traveller now in the North, is still burning, and there are also fires in other swamps. When once a fire breaks out it usually continues right through the summer months, and some have been known to extend far into tho winter. Apart from tho burning of gum, which usually abounds in tho northern swamp, there is still greater loss to tho Dominion in the destruction of humus rendering the land practically useless for agricultural purposes, for the usual experience is that wood which permeates tho soil of tho swamp is destroyed down to the water level. It is, of course, only tho drained, or partly-drained, swamps that take fire hence the necessity for assuring that drainage works shall be carried out under a properly regulated system. When the Kauri Gum Commission inspected one swamp in the North on Crown property Inst week they found that a drain about a mile in length had been cut by gum-diggors, and was still being extended fo r the purpose of getting at the gum in the swamp without any consultation with the Lands Department authorities. One of the problems which has been committed to the Commission for enquiry is, how the system of gum-dig-gers’ fires should be regulated. The general trend of the evidence so far is that burning should be permitted only in the months from April to September or October ; some witnesses also consider that it should be done under the supervision of officers to bo appointed by the Department, who should have charge of tho swamp in well-defined districts.