Ideal of conservation

Forest and Bird, Issue 53, 1 August 1939, Page 1

Ideal of conservation

NEED OF WIDE VIEWS

( f ~*7**2 HOSE who are very actively interested in the protection of native birds are perhaps over prone to concentrate their mind solely on the one aim, but the same tendency applies to the shootist who regards as vermin every living thing which he thinks may tend to lessen the numbers of the creatures he wishes to kill. The trout enthusiast only too often looks merely at the fish in the river and views any natural killer of trout as his enemy. Few people take the necessary wider view. When studying the conservation of forms of life in which they are particularly interested, they fail to look upon the whole, as a whole. Now the main needs in the preservation of almost any creature, including fish, are food and cover. This course goes straight to the soil, because good fertile soil produces food and cover. Obviously the top soil must be saved to ensure a continuation of native plant life, the builder and guardian of the precious fertile top soil itself. When the protective vegetation is destroyed soil ceases to form; indeed, it is destroyedleached and washed into the sea by the processes of erosion. Thus the Assistant-Director of the Imperial Bureau of Soil Science, Rothamstead, says: — “The structure of the indigenous plant life is usually related to that of the soil in such a way that the vegetation and soil together form a natural non-eroding system.” When this natural vegetation is destroyed or damaged the fertile top soil soon begins to deteriorate as the processes of soil-destroying erosion proceed. At first it is barely noticeable, but with ever-increasing momentum it lays waste the land. All living creatures, including man, suffer from an ever-lessening food supply. Their numbers decrease, and in the end many species die out. Owing to past grievous mistakes in forestry and wild-life management, New Zealand to-day is more gravely menaced by erosion than perhaps any other young country young in the sense of settlement. The destruction caused by war may not be difficult to repair, but “when erosion assumes the mastery man is helpless,” as the late Dr. Leonard Cockayne declared. Surely, then, it behoves every person who seeks a living in this country to awaken and sturdily encourage and support any worth-while effort to placate much-wronged Nature. Let the nativebird lover and game-bird hunters and the fisher-man’s voices lead the call for reform. All their interests, along with man’s existence, are allied with the safeguarding of the fertile top soil. An excess of silt in rivers and streams chokes fish. It spoils the breeding grounds and also destroys much fish food. This silting is caused by sheet erosionthe result of the deforestation of watersheds— is not to be remedied in the slightest degree by the planting of river banks, as some trout enthusiasts fondly believe. The source of the trouble lies in the highlands, where, owing to the lack of the original protecting forest or other natural vegetation, water run-off fails to penetrate into the soil, and assumes an undue velocity and quantity with the result that the fertility and stability of the top soil are destroyed by the washing away of humus and organic matter. The food of game birds and all birds depending on sustenance from the top soil or upon the fruits or seeds .of plants, which would flourish if the soil was in its fertile condition, disappears, or greatly decreases owing to the infertile condition of the soil to the detriment of those creatures which in their turn are dependent upon this food. In the face of such causes of the steady decrease of fish and game birds in New Zealand it does seem somewhat futile to endeavour to increase sport by destroying the natural enemy, as distinct from the introduced enemies. The remedy is to ascertain the real cause by careful research and trained observation.