N.Z. FOREST SERVICE

Hokitika Guardian, 10 April 1930, Page 6

N.Z. FOREST SERVICE

THE PLANTATIONS

NELSON, April 9

Hon. AV. Taverner, Commissioner of State Forests, opened the annual conference off the executive officers of the Forest Service at Nelson.

The Director of State Forests, Mr Turner, said the aggregate area of New Zealand State Plantations now reaches 245,000 acres of valuable timber trees which is the largest area of State-owned and State-planted forests in any one State of the British Empire. He added: ‘‘Not only has this huge work been accomplished, but we can only justly claim to have applied systematic and business management to our indigenous forests, which for the most part were formerly under no management, but sales of timber on an antiquated system, which resulted in great waste and national loss. We have under our care about seven and a half million acres of indigenous forest. This is a huge area and many thoughtless persons claim that a large portion of these reserved lands should be opened up for settlement. From our practical experience in the field here, and from the study of forestry and forests of other countries, we know these reservations contain only small fractions of land suitable for settlement, and that wore the reservations removed from the remainder, and settlement allowed, the ultimate result would he disastrous both from the national point of view and for the individual.” Hon. Mr Taverner said they had entered upon the second phase of forestry history, the replacement of the indigenous softwood forests with exotic plantings, and to foresters this changing of the old order must be very interesting indeed. He bad noticed in Nelson and Marlborough a preference for specimens of exotic trees, evidently planted by pioneer, settlers. These trees attained remarkable growth, and must be of great interest, showing that „the soil here is well suited for afforestation. He referred to the presence here of the Cnwthron Institute, with its forest biological research station under control of Mr David M iller. This work he regarded of national impo'tnnce. He also dealt with the depletion of forests, and paid a tribute to the ’high standard set by the forest service generally.