Rebuilding The Forests

Of The

Eastern Highlands

THE bare, grassy hills of the Eastern Highlands District of New Guinea, should one day be a thing of the past.

Already 800,000 seedling trees— mostly of klinki and hoop pine— have been planted out in the District, and by the end of the next wet season, it is hoped that the plantings will pass the 1,000,000 mark.

Forestry belts and plantations can now be seen from some of the Highlands roads. Natives are tak ing a keen interest in the plantings

As Australia Sees It

THE Fijians doing their war dance before the Rugby Test on Saturday was the 'most fright ening sight I ever saw. They shook their fists, made terrible gestures in the air.

The Australian 15 in their green sweaters looked puny, almost in significant. But they waited patiently, until the Fijians finished their dance, and made no attempt to flee. Then those little green sweatered men went on to defeat the mightly Fijians. It was as tonishing, —A Columnist in the “Courier Mail” after the first test in Brisbane.

and have been known to walk long distances to obtain the seedlings.

Scattered groves of casuarinas were the only trees that broke the monotony of the grassy valley and hills of the Highlands when Europeans first saw the area. But that this general treelessness was man-made was obvious. Over the centuries, the natives destroyed the timber and used these grasslands as their “fighting lands” or for hunting. The villages were higher up in the forest belt.

One of the curses of life in Goroka for Europeans has been the difficulty of obtaining firewood—or such things as fence posts—from close at hand.