PROPER USE OF LAKE WATERSHED IS BEING INVESTIGATED - MR O'DEA

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 42, 1 June 1965, Page 2

PROPER USE OF LAKE WATERSHED IS BEING INVESTIGATED - MR O'DEA

The proper use of the whole Lake Taupo watershed couhl now be investigated, the deputy secretary, Department of Interual Affairs, Mr P. O'Day, said at Saturday's conference of Lake Taupo Federation of Angling, Boating and Shooting Clubs. Mr O'Dea said he had been chairman of the Cabinet committee which had investigated the Taupo County Council's proposals for reserves in the area. This had now developed into working committees which would proceed to consider the many aspects of the problem. Mr O'Dea was replying to a remit from Taltac urging the department to give consideration to an investigation and to initiate a programme of afforestation in all marginal areas of rivers and that all further clearing of land in the watershed be subject to the approval of the appropriate conservation authority. The director of wild life, Mr F. L. Newcombe, told the conference of a major step taken in this connection between his department and the Justice Department. Seven major points agreed upon constituted a "major breakthrough" in negotiations on conservation. The agreement covered all land in the Tongariro Prison Farm boundaries. • Protection will be given to the watersheds, primarily in the form of no interference with the marginal areas adjacent to the streams, which will be left in their natural canopy. This will mean that the areas will not be burnt off and will be fenced off from stock, except where in the normal course of farm planning, stock will require access to water.

. ® Areas adjacent to the top terraces are under consideration for afforestation. • Provision will be made for the retention of swamp lands. • Seven rivers and j streams were included in the area. • In the case of the Tongariro, two chains will be left untouched as reserve. • In the future, the Justice Department and Internal Affairs officers will collaborate on a.ll aspects of watershed protection. • Consideration will be given in future planning to ensure, as far as possible^ avoiding putting insecticides into streams. The conference urged that these points be applied to other land development areas in the catchment. It approved three remits, as follows: — "That the department urgently investigate and have initiated an afforestation programme in all marginal areas of rivers and that all further clearing of land in the watershed be subject to the approval of the appropriate conservation authority." "That the department arrange the declaration of a 10-chain reserve on both banks of the rivers leading into the lake and a fivechain reserve on both banks of tributaries feeding these rivers. "That the bed of the Waitahanui River and tributaries from source to mouth together with an adequate area on both banks be created a national reserve."