FORESTS AND EMPIRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1939, Page 3

FORESTS AND EMPIRE

IMPORTANT NATURAL COMMODITY.

Tn spite of the increasing use of substitutes, timber and wood products still remained among the most important natural commodities in the world, said the Duke of Kent in his presidential address to the Empire Forestry Association. This was borne out by the fact that in 1937 imports into Britain, valued at nearly £62,000,000, exceeded those of any previous year since 1919-20. Wood remained one of the indispensable articles of mankind; as soon as new substitutes were found new uses for timber were discovered. Forestry was not concerned alone with the supply of timber and other products. Among its most important benefits was the prevention of erosion and the regulation of stream flow. History abounded in examples of the disastrous results from the destruction of forests. The ancient Empire of Persia, which', relied on Mesopotamia for most of its revenue, owed its fall primarily to the removal of the forests on the hills, resulting in the destruction of the magnificent irrigation work on the Tigris and the Euphrates and the conversion of Mesopotamia into a desert. The fall of Babylon might have been due primarily to the same cause, and countless other cases could be traced in history to desiccation and loss of water control, due mainly to the destruction of forests.