Sustaining and restoring our environment

Biodiversity is central to what sustains us: it is the life on which our lives depend. Although New Zealand was one of the last places on earth to be settled by humans, it has one of the worst records of native biodiversity loss.

Isolated for so long, New Zealand became home to many 'endemic' (found only in New Zealand) and unusual species which were completely unprepared for the sudden arrival of competitors and predators.