DEMON OF EROSION.

Forest and Bird, Issue 33, 1 June 1934, Page 8

DEMON OF EROSION.

New Zealand Wasting Away.

It is less than a century since organised settlement of New Zealand by British people began —and yet in that short span of years (very short in the history of a country), large tracts of fertile land have been lost by erosion, due to man’s stupidity in hacking and burning away forests from steep watersheds. Thoughtful men in the United States of America are bewailing the loss of thirty million acres of productive country, ruined by erosion since the advent of Europeans. Probably a careful survey would show New Zealand to be a proportionately greater sufferer. Anybody who studies a relief map of New Zealand will see clearly that this country is peculiarly susceptible to erosion if forests are cleared away from high country. New Zealand is mainly a group of hills, mountains and valleys. Many of the highlands, as they are very steep, offer a favourable playground for the demon of erosion if the flow of rainwater is not regulated by suitable forests. The word “suitable” is used advisedly, for some of the man-made forests —gloomy stands of exotic pines and other aliens —are not nearly as effective as native forests in the control of rain-flow.

How many more years of continuous loss will be required to impress on New Zealanders in the mass—particularly their representatives in Parliament—the cold hard fact that their country is wasting away? The fear of erosion in the United States of America is now so keenly felt that the great Civilian Conservation Corps —an organisation due to President Roosevelt’s big national plan—is hard at work to check the scourge. Similar action must be taken in New Zealand. The longer the necessary action is delayed, the greater will be the penalty on the people and their descendants, for some of the havoc will be beyond repair.

One vital need is a war of extermination against deer which are bringing death to native forests.