THE KAURI FORESTS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 62, 13 November 1913, Page 4

THE KAURI FORESTS.

Some light, is thrown upon the causes which operate in the destruction ot liio kauri forests of the north by an Auckland sawmiller, hir W . 15. Leyland, iu an article published in a northern paper. Mr Leyland, after quoting a Crown Land Commissioner s statement that wherever civilisation approached the kauri that great tree was doomed, even though the reserves were specially protected and guarded, blames the gtnmligger for a great deal of the destruction. The gold digger and the settlor, as well as the sawmiller. do their share in; clearing the kauri from the face ofj the northern lands, hut its worst foe. because the most unscrupulous, is the• fossiker for kauri gum. So at any. rate declares Mr Leyland, who gives some rather remarkable instances of deliberate acts of forest-firing on the part of the diggers. He describes how a gurndigger fired bush before a contractor's eyes, after having been shown the notices which prohibited the lighting of scrub fires in tho valuable forest. This fire involved the destruction of one and a half million feet of timber. The gurndigger was prosecuted, but as be was only fined- £b and was given three months in which

to pay. the threat of pains and penalties is not likely to prove a very powerful deterrent.