REMNANTS OF FORESTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 219, 16 August 1937, Page 5

REMNANTS OF FORESTS

TIME FOR STOCKTAKING. NEW ZEALAND’S POSITION. “The need of a stocktaking, in order to obtain accurate estimates of the remnant of our native forests, is an urgent economic necessity,” states the Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand in its journal. “It is believed that some work was done in this direction about the year 1924. and that this showed that the remnants of real native forest were alarmingly small even at that time. Much of those areas has since been cut out.” “A recent authoritative statement gives the remaining forest land, including scrub-covered land and second growth, as 20 million acres. This official estimate is made up as follows : —• National parks, 3 000,000 acres ; scenic reserves and domains'. 1.000.000; State Forest reserves. 8.000.000 (presumably including exotic plantations, 1,000,000 acres); otherwise owned, 7,750,000. “An estimate made on such a basis can only he likened to a business which overvalues its stock-in-trade, and thereby misleads, itself and tlie public, because much of the land on the reservations named carries neither scrub nor second growth, let alone forests, as it includes large areas of snow-cap-ped mountain tops, such as Egmont, Ruapehu, Tongariro. extensive areas ill Fiordland National Park, and waste lands (without scrub or second growth even) on all reservations. “It is feared that an accurate stocktaking of the remnant of real forest would bring the total area down to as low a figure as three million acres. Nobody knows, as far as we can ascertain. what the total acreage is of the remnant of real forest still intact. Now what would be said about tlie business [which managed its affairs in such a manner that it never knew what stock it had oil hand, and how far it could draw on its stock without depleting itsresources and bringing its operations l o a standstill.” “Lauds have been destroyed for a snail gold return on lands which would have returned real necessaries of life for centuries if they had been put to their proper purposes. Successive Governments have allowed large areas iff high tussock country to be burned ,■>nd grazed until its natural water-re-taining qualities have been destroyed, pnd much of it is now of little use for pastoral purposes.”