SCENERY PRESERVATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2250, 23 July 1908, Page 1

SCENERY PRESERVATION.

THE ANNUAL HEI'OHT. [Special to “Times.”] WELLINGTON, July 22. The Scenery Preservation Branch of the Lands'Department, in its annual report, states that not much was done during tlio year in tlio acquisition of lands for scenic purposes. Tlio report states that as most of tlio areas' suitable for scenery preservation are lands almost entirely covered with native forest, great care had to he exorcised in insuring that they had not been, or were likely to bo, affected by the bush fires periodically occurring throughout New Zealand, particularly in such a dry summer as lias recently been experienced. However, it is worthy of- note that none of tlio existing reserves were seriously affected 111 this maimer, and that their natural beauties aro practically preserved under, in many eases, exceptionally trying circumstances. Up to tlio 31st March, 1907, ail area of 25,801 acres hail be; it acquired and reserved under the Scenery Preservation Act, 1903, and tlio Public Works Act, 1905, and during the 12 months ended the 31st March, 1908, an addition of 8130 acres was made to tlio total, which thus readied 33,931 acres, .inclusive of about 100,000:acres of Grown . kipd similarly reserved under ,the'Laud : Abt. Lastyear’s expenses wero £5484, and there remains a. balance of £78,196 for future operations. “No one,” says tlio report, “ivlio lias any intimate 'knowledge of tlio magnificent 'forest lands of i tlie North Island Main Trunk railway line, in the vicinity of tlio main roads all over tlio Dominion,'the practically uniquo river scenery on the Wanganui, Mokau, and other wellknown .waterways, the hush-clad shores of inland lakes and ocean inlets, and the .innumerable scenic, historic, and thermal attractions of our country, can deny that this amount will bo moro than required to preserve tlio best features of New Zealand . scenery. The Wanganui river, for instance, has no equal in the world ns regards its botanical and scenic attractions, and so, in a. greater ■or less degree, throughout tlio whole of the Dominion, our natural scenery, is more appreciated the moro it is visited and known.”