Future of Taranaki.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 November 1939, Page 4

Future of Taranaki.

‘People of Taranaki have been often told that the prosperity of the large areas of very fertile dairyingland. on the slopes of Mt. Egmont depends on the careful preservation of the forest mantle, but the great majority seem to doubt that fact,' 1 says a member of the Forest and Bird Protection Society. "Year after year the Egmont National Park Board appeals lor sufficient money for campaigns against destructive goats, and for other necessary operations, but there is a very disappointing response. The board periodically holds out a pleading hand to the Government and receives a grant, but it seems to be in a chronic state of ‘hardupness’ because the farmers and other ratepayers in the aggregate begrudge the compartively small sums required as a premium to maintain an insurance policy for theiy own welfare. They seem to have a belie! that Mt. Egmont. and its forest should not bo regarded as the mainstay of tin (arming industries, but rather as a .national scenic asset, and that the genera) taxpayers of New Zealand should be responsible .for the preservation ol the beautiful mantle which conserves and regulates the How of water to farmi □ nd s