MOUNTAIN BUSH

Forest and Bird, Issue 54, 1 November 1939, Page 12

MOUNTAIN BUSH

By “Ngahere.”

THE RUIN OF HIGH COUNTRY FOREST.

A MOTORIST who crossed from Taupo to Napier by the mountain road recently told of the evidence of forest-felling on the ranges that met his eye and of the choking dust storm he and his companions encountered as they descended into the ruined valley of Eskdale. In the middle of the pumice ranges where there were still some lone remnants of the original bush left there was a roadside notice warning motorists to look out for timber lorries coming in by a side road, and there was a sign indicating that a timber mill was located some short distance from the road. This is in the heart of the mountains somewhere about 2,500 feet above sea level. The few fragments of bush up there are apparently doomed. Privately owned bush cannot be protected unless the Government buys it from the owners; and this pumice mountain bush is stated to be nativeowned, and operated on by Hawke’s Bay millers. It is the old story. The advocates of forest conservation have repeatedly urged the State to acquire and protect these tracts of bush, already pitifully small, that exist on the high hill country, but nothing is done to save them. The sawmiller quietly goes ahead and gets his mill up and his trees down and presently leaves the place a scene of timber wreckage. That is what has happened even on Tongariro Mountain, a range which of all places should have been saved from the axe and saw. It is happening to-day on other highlands, from North Auckland to the King Country. Fortunately, a considerable area of forest on the Kaimai Range has been saved as a water-supply reserve, but the whole of these steep ranges should have been preserved. There is a natural tendency to fight for survival on the part of many of our native plants generally. An example of this passion for getting the upper hand of foreign rivals is the persistence of several plants, particularly pittosporums, in the Rotorua country. A Maori one day pointed out to the writer the vigour with which the karamu, a glossy-leaved shrub or small tree, was reasserting itself on Maungakakaramea (otherwise Rainbow Mountain) and other hills in the large State Forest reserves. It was fighting the Government trees, he said; wait a while, it was a wise tree, and would

repair all the wastage caused by fires. It would grow up under the shelter of the larch and other foreign trees, and so would other Maori trees; wait a while, some of the foreigners would have to give place to the Maori. He was taking a longrange view; but it seems reasonable to suppose that in the long run the quick-growing and least valuable trees such as the exotic pines will give place to the good native timbers, the best crop that ever the New Zealand hills and valleys grew. The karamu is mentioned as an example noticed; it is a shrub of no particular value, except for the use the Maoris made of it for dye purposes. But it is one of the ancient small trees of the district; and in spite of fires and all, it returns. THE DESTROYERS OF BEAUTY. Another aspect of the spread of all kinds of introduced vegetation is discussed in a letter I have received from a King Country correspondent who is keenly interested in the natural attractions and the historical interest of the district (Kiokio) in which he lives. He laments the riotous spread of so much that is noxious and ugly in the plants that the pakeha brought to the Maori country. Places of beauty such as the Three Sisters Hills, the principal of which was Tokanui, near the main south road through the King Country, were largely covered with Scotch thistles, ragwort and other curses. (Incidentally, to complete the spoiling of these ancient pa hills, huge quarries for volcanic road material have been driven into Tokanui.) “The invasion of exotics,” my correspondent adds, “is so complete that I have come to dislike most heartily even the oak and the elm. We New Zealanders are laughed at for our illjudged introduction of fauna and flora that are not wanted in the land of the noblest trees and the most beautiful and rare birds. I suppose one must be philosophic about these things, but I am planting nothing but native trees on my place. I have a small sheltered gully and I am working on the scheme at present. I wish to include as many species as possible of those trees and shrubs which were of economic value to the Maori. Time is flying. I feel at one with Cecil Rhodes when he said, “so much to do; so little done.”