RAVAGED NATURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 320, 3 April 1928, Page 14

RAVAGED NATURE

HEATHER AND GOATS INJURIOUS IMPORTATIONS (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. Fears are entertained by Br. A. W. Hill, the Birector of Kew Gardens, that all is not well with some of the Dominican’s reserves, and that exotic plants and the ravages of animals will destroy the native flora. “I have been greatly impressed,” he says in his report to the Government, “with the magnificent reserves which are scattered throughout the Bominion. I have visited the National Reserves at Tongariro and Mount Egmont, and have also seen the reserves at Riccarton Bush, at Bunedin, the Otari Open-air Museum, Wellington, Waitakere and Rangitoto. I would suggest that, in the case of the National Reserves at Tongariro, Mount Egmont. Waimakariri. Mount Cook, and Fiord, the Birector of the Botanic Gardens should be chairman of the board or have some direct control over the management of such reserves. My main reason for making this suggestion is that I have been very distressed to notice that heather and other exotic plants have been introduced into Tongariro, and, unless eradicated without delay, will sadly destroy the features of the park as a National Reserve of native vegetation. If it is intended that these reserves are to be reserves for the preservation of the native flora, tl.\n the introduction of any exotic plant is likely before long seriously to destroy their proper character. “Similarly on Mount Egmont I was very grieved to hear that goats were making serious ravages on the native vegetation. The damage that goats have done to vegetation in other parts of the world is only too well knov|i, and, on St. Helena, they have entirely destroyed the native vegetation.”