Letter: Pinus radiata is a miracle tree

OPINION: Bob Brockie is right (World of Science, Sept 6). Pinus radiata is a miracle tree in the New Zealand context; it grows extraordinarily rapidly under variable conditions, producing huge volumes of excellent timber (when treated), particularily on poor-quality hill country no longer ideal or suitable for farming.

It is the core of our forestry industry. It has earned this country billions of dollars and created thousands of jobs. There is no way our indigenous forest trees could have achieved that comparatively.

Conservationists can do strange things.

There is a huge basin surrounded by snow- topped mountains in the middle of St James section of Molesworth Station, Marlborough. Nothing grows except tussock but it can be grazed in summer. In the middle, a small plantation of pine (not radiata) was planted 40 years ago achieving a height of 10m.

It provided shelter for stock and enhanced the dramatic landscape. Conservationists felled it, leaving the trees to rot slowly in the prevailing cold; they're now an eyesore. The reason given? The trees were not indigenous.

BLAIR L J TREADWELL

Days Bay

If you want to reply to this letter, email letters@dompost.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News