No guarantee our farmers would manage land better

FEDERATED Farmers, predictably, has blamed the Department of Conservation and its management of conservation land for the Ohau fires, and has claimed that if farmers managed the land, all would be well.

The land immediately around the Ohau village is lifestyle blocks, presumably sold off by the local farmer, and it is on these areas that pines have been planted and wilding pines have proliferated, creating the fire hazard that allowed the fire to spread into the village.

The nearest significant conservation land to the Ohau village is actually 2km away.

Throughout the Mackenzie Basin, wilding pines are now creating severe fire risks. They are mainly on private land; farms and, to a lesser extent, lifestyle blocks.

The pines have been planted and allowed to spread, unchecked by the the landowners. The recent Pukaki fires were on such private land. Any pines on conservation land are probably seeded from the adjacent private land.

There is little evidence that the farmers have been good custodians of the land, and the public are now expected to pick up the bill for sorting out the wilding pine disaster created by the action and inaction of the land owners.

Graham Dickson

Wanaka

IN her book Station Life in New Zealand (1870), Lady Barker describes burning tussock land for pasture, with blackened hills being inundated by gulls feeding on roasted lizards and insects the next day. She lamented that the ‘‘wonderful blazes’’ from burning sixfoot high tussocks were now a thing of the past.

Wild ducks, swamp hens and bitterns were displaced after a dry spell, when flax swamps could also be burned by setting bonfires under big green plants.

Such destruction is a glaring contrast to observations by J. T. Salmon (1968), recorded in Field Guide to Alpine Plants, who described native tussock fields, which support almost half of all

New Zealand plant species, acting as giant natural sponges that soak up water after rain. Unfortunately, these systems also suffer great damage from browsing animals.

These accounts illustrate that fires are a result of human activity, damaging waterretaining ecosystems and less flammable native plants by deliberate burning and grazing. Resulting fire hazards are now made worse by uncontrolled spread of wilding pines and the growing impacts of global warming.

Consequently, the regeneration and protection of natural alpine systems, wherever possible, seems a wise option, including the planting of less flammable native beech, as recommended by Prof Dave Kelly (ODT, 10.10.20).

M. Sandmark

Port Chalmers

Election

DO we really need four clowns sitting behind a panel to give us election results?

I feel that when we tune in to television to see election results, this is what we want: results of what is happening around New Zealand, not people blathering on about what might or might not happen. Which is what we got on the night of the October 17 election.

It would have been more interesting to have seen results on a big screen rather than down at the bottom where it is harder for us oldies to read. We didn’t need an uncomfortablelooking Nikki Kaye to give her thoughts. I guess that is modern television, and I, an old fuddyduddy, have to learn to live with it. Connie Masters

Balclutha

I FEEL vaguely sorry for the National Party.

Then, a zeptosecond later, I hope they disappear like so much fog on a sunny day.

It was there for a while but burned off in a new era.

Peter Walker

Port Chalmers