SALVAGING OUR FORESTS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 April 1938, Page 6

SALVAGING OUR FORESTS.

Many well-intentioned people intent on saving as much as'possible of the poor remnants of the magnificent forest heritage- with which this country was once endowed make from time to time more or less indiscriminate attacks on the Forestry Department because it permits the milling of timber in State forests. In dealing wr 1 this matter from a practical standpoint, though witi the greatest possible regard to the . maintenance and perpetuation of forest, it is necessary to distinguish carefully between milling that is justified and that which is not. Admittedly there is a good deal of protection forest on high and steep country which ought to be maintained as nearly as possible intact, and any general cutting out o forest of that character is wanton and wasteful vandalism, of the worst description, entailing continuing flood damage to lands between the hills and the sea in comparison with which gains derived from the milling of timber are paltry and insignificant.

Little accessible forest is likely, however, to be perpetuated in any other .conditions, than those of alternate milling and regeneration.’, A very, .-large- t proportion' -of the forests which are maintained, . and ■ have been lor many centuries, on something like one-fifth of the total land area of European countries like France and Germany are periodically milled and replaced. In these countries and others in which full scope is given to scientific forest management, forest work is the economic mainstay of. great populations. In Germany, for example, the people who rely mainly on the forests for occupation and livelihood number millions. If the New Zealand Forestry Department is to do really effective work in salvaging what is left of our forest estate, it must be permitted to administer, work and develop the forests as a commercial asset with much of the forest land producing continuing crops of timber. In that way, forest protection and improvement may be reconciled with national profit What should be demanded is not that all State forest should be .left alone, but that milling should be permitted only in conditions that will ensure the regeneration and improvement of the forest. It goes without saying that there should be no further milling of protection forests the regeneration of which would be impossible if they were once cut out. There are some protection forests which could be safeguarded much more effectively than they are now, however, if they were worked under approved methods of milling or selection felling, making adequate provision for regeneration and for the thickening’ of the timber-stand.