Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1938. FORESTRY AND FLOODS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1938. FORESTRY AND FLOODS.

ALTHOUGH the Wairarapa has been spared floods as disastrous in their effects as some that have occurred in recent times in Hawke’s Bay and other parts of the Dominion, it has had its experience of floods in themselves sufficiently serious. On that account and others, the people of this district should be well able to appreciate the wisdom and value of the advice offered by a visiting forestry expert, Professor H. H. Corbin, in urging, as others have done before him, that this country should make much more ample provision for the conservation and development of forests. ! In some observations made in Blenheim yesterday. Professor Corbin contrasted the heedless destruction of forests that has gone so far in New Zealand and in other British Dominions, as well as in the United States, with the very different position in India, where forests are conserved strictly and are cared for by a highly-trained technical service. In this country (he added) there is very serious need for highly trained foresters. There used to be a school of forestry in New Zealand, but the people of the Dominion decided that it was not worth while. ( In due course they will pay very heavily for that. The people of the Dominion in town and country are already paying heavily for the past neglect and destruction of forests. Part’ ,-at least, of the permanent and temporary flood damage now done periodically in both rural and urban areas need never have occurred had common sense measures been taken to safeguard and maintain on watersheds and elsewhere the forests with which New Zealand was so well provided until our pioneers had established their foothold. Even now we are far from having reversed the past policy of forest destruction to the extent that is desirable. Since 1922 we have had a State Forest Service which has done and is doing much valuable work, but the total staff of the department is little more than a nucleus of what is needed. Apart from the fact that this country has much land now waste which is capable of growing valuable continuing crops of timber and is of little value for . any other purpose, it is very largely through the work of foresters that an approach must be made to as satisfactory a solution as is now possible of flood problems. Professor Corbin made an interesting suggestion regarding the broadcast sowing on denuded hills of the maritime pine, the tree that has been utilised in reclaiming great areas of sandy waste in Gascony and elsewhere. The possibilities of action on these lines on a considerable scale in many parts of New Zealand are well worth going into exhaustively, but the work can only be undertaken under the direction of an adequate staff of experts. It is even more important that this work should be put in hand than that engineering schemes should be promoted to provide what protection is now possible against damage by periodic floods. There is in this country, as Professor Corbin said, a very serious need for highly trained foresters, and it is the simple truth that failure to satisfy this vital need is. one for which the people of the Dominion will pay dearly as time goes on.