Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Aotearoa New Zealand has the potential to be a world leader in ecological wisdom.
We have a strong tradition to draw from - the careful relationship of reciprocity that
Maori developed with the natural world over the course of many, many generations.
We live at the edge of the Pacific, on the Rim of Fire, a remnant of the ancient forests
of Gondwanaland. We welcome conscious travellers.
Nandor Tanczos is a social ecologist based in Ngaruawahia. He was a Member of
Parliament for the Green Party from 1999 to 2008.
Wildlife
NZ may be relatively young, geologically speaking, but its plants and animals go back a
long way. The tuatara, for instance, an ancient reptile unique to these islands, is a Gond-
wanaland survivor closely related to the dinosaurs, while many of the distinctive flightless
birds (ratites) have distant African and South American cousins.
Due to its long isolation, the country is a veritable warehouse of unique and varied wild-
life, most of which is found nowhere else. And with separation of the landmass occurring
before mammals appeared on the scene, birds and insects have evolved in spectacular ways
to fill the gaps.
The now extinct flightless moa, the largest of which grew to 3.5m tall and weighed over
200kg, browsed open grasslands much as cattle do today (skeletons can be seen at Auckland
Museum), while the smaller kiwi still ekes out a nocturnal living rummaging among forest
leaf litter for insects and worms much as small mammals do elsewhere. One of the country's
most ferocious-looking insects, the mouse-sized giant weta, meanwhile, has taken on a scav-
enging role elsewhere filled by rodents.
As one of the last places on earth to be colonised by humans, NZ was for millennia a safe
laboratory for such risky evolutionary strategies, but with the arrival first of Maori and soon
after Europeans, things went downhill fast.
Many endemic creatures, including moa and the huia, an exquisite songbird, were driven
to extinction, and the vast forests were cleared for their timber and to make way for agricul-
ture. Destruction of habitat and the introduction of exotic animals and plants have taken a
terrible environmental toll and New Zealanders are now fighting a rearguard battle to save
what remains.
