Land Management.

Forest and Bird, Issue 36, 1 May 1935, Page 4

Land Management.

(By Captain E. V. Sanderson.)

Ruinous Toll of Erosion.

The Land, the Land, the Land! All are vitally concerned with the management of the land. The results of our methods in this direction must and do affect the well-being of every individual for better or worse. The efficient use and conservation of our national resources in forests, agriculture and pastoral pursuits, streams, rivers, minerals, etc., affect the destiny of all our people.

The Precious Top Layer.

The most important part of the land to us as a nation is merely the first few inches, otherwise the top soil. But where are we at the present moment? Fifty per cent, of the people operating as primary producers cannot make ends meet owing to the reduced prices of land products, while a considerable portion of consumers cannot purchase the products owing to the dear prices at which they reach them. A large number of those handling the land are now being bolstered up by those who have handled their undertakings in a more profitable manner, with the final result that the whole nation is now being ground down by intolerable taxation and governmental interference. In the meanwhile most seek their food and clothing day by day buoyed up by that hope which springs eternal in the human breast that matters will readjust themselves and prosperity come like a brilliant light from nowhere, without any effort on our part to put our house in order.

Widespread Denudation.

Let us cast a glance around New Zealand and note what we see. Denudation of our essential protection forests everywhere, he it on land impossible for other uses than forest production, or on that which is merely of a temporary use for grazing purposes. Think, too, that the work of many stalwart pioneers—men of stout heart and brawny muscle —has been in vain and their hard misdirected efforts have been so entirely misplaced that their work has been lost to the nation. The land upon which they spent their energy is now, in many cases, in a far more unproductive condition than prior to that time when the first blow of an axe smote a tree. Thousands upon thousands of acres of land have gone to waste which—it should have been evident to the most inexperienced—could not remain in produc-

tion as farming land for long. Other thousands have been incessantly burned and over-grazed and thus lost to production. Not only has this land gone out of production, but its denuded hillsides let loose debris which fills and chokes our rivers, causes excessive floods at one time, and dry watercourses at other times; in fact this slipping has become a menace of the first magnitude to the lower productive lands.

Haphazard Settlement.

This haphazard method of colonisation is perhaps usual to the Anglo-Saxon race, as much the same sort of thing has

happened in the United States of America and in other colonized lands. The final results of our present methods of mere exploitation for the moment must have much more disastrous effects in New Zealand, in proportion to its size, than in America, because the configuration of this Dominion unfortunately is peculiarly adapted to the forces of both sheet and gullying erosion.

Typical Cases of Muddle.

In a nutshell, the present methods of land management, or rather, mismanagement, can only end in grave national disaster. Instances could be quoted of ruinous land management from end to end of the Dominion, but let us be content with instancing merely one —the Wanganui River district. Here we see three variant efforts: One, to use the steep and at times precipitous country adjacent to the river for pastoral purposes; another section seeks to save the scenic value. Now we cannot have both the forest, which makes the scenic value, and the land for pastoral purposes. A third section seeks to have a harbour at the river mouth, and did excavate a large hole there for that purpose. The excavation was, of course, promptly filled up with silt and debris from the forest-denuded steep hillsides. The taxpayer pays for all three sections, each working against the others. Surely it should have been obvious at the outset that if the forest were destroyed the making of a harbour at the rivermouth would not be possible. The first essential was to decide to what use the land adjoining the river should be put. For grazing the land was too steep generally and could not long remain productive in pasture, owing to the inevitable loss of the top soil, which could not be held in situ owing to the steep gradient. Therefore the scenic value, it appears, would have been the wisest selection instead of trying, as it were, to eat the cake and have it too.

Europe’s Lead in Sanity.

In Europe how different is the question of land management handled! Protection forests have been established and are safeguarded, so much so, that in a mountainous country like Switzerland it is necessary for the landowner in some districts to get the permission of the authorities before he may fell a tree — and rightly so, because the public in general, besides the actual owner, have to suffer because of unnecessary wanton forest depletion. Forests in Europe are, however, looked upon as an ever-recurring productive crop, and not, as in New Zealand, merely handed over to some individual for destruction.

Wanted—A New Zealand Roosevelt.

Here in New Zealand there is a great opportunity for some far-seeing Roosevelt who can rise great enough to override the

petty individualist’s interests and set about getting our land management on to sane lines ere erosion has assumed the upper hand. Our few remaining forests should, as a matter of course, be rid of all trespassing plant-eating animals at no matter what cost; protected from fire, and allowed to revert to their primitive conditions. All land, which has gone out of production on steep hillsides and on poor soil, should be abandoned for its hoped-for use and treated as part of the protection forests, beside much high country now used for merino production. The plant life on any area of a decided-upon general steepness, or above a certain stated elevation, should be conserved.

In this way, and in such a manner only, can the future prosperity of this Dominion be assured. No such measures as tampering with currency, bounties to farmers, false exchange rates, or other temporary expedients can have the slightest effect on erosion’s terrible toll of our top soil.