Indigenous biodiversity
A selection of relevant websites
Biodiversity References (BIOREF) is a portal to more than 300 biodiversity information resources. It has been designed to assist planners, surveyors and scientists working on biodiversity issues in New Zealand. The continued value of this website relies upon it being regularly updated.
KiwImage is a resource being developed. It will contain satellite imagery of New Zealand and its offshore islands at 60 centimetre resolution, sufficiently detailed to show individual trees and bushes, walking tracks and road markings. It will be ortho-rectified to locate objects within a metre and a half of their true position.
The Statement of National Priorities for Protecting Rare and Threatened Indigenous Biodiversity on Private Land website focuses on rare and threatened species and ecosystems. It includes links through to a number of useful biodiversity resources, as follows:
- a list of historically rare ecosystems (PDF).
- Landcare Research information on New Zealand’s historically rare ecosystems.
- a threat classification system, including the lists of threatened species.
- National Priority 1 – regional and district/city maps: these are maps for each regional and local council of those land environments (defined by Land Environments of New Zealand at Level IV) that have 20 per cent or less remaining in indigenous cover.
The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network website provides information about native plants and their conservation in New Zealand. It includes photographs and other information useful for assisting in the identification of plants. It also includes a tool to show a list of threatened plant species within territorial local authority or regional council boundaries.
The review of biodiversity databases (1999) provides a review of national databases for land, water, freshwater biodiversity and terrestrial biodiversity and was undertaken as part of a wider Ministry for the Environment project to review different ecological classification systems and databases used for environmental management and reporting.
Weedbusters has a large amount of information to help with the identification and control of weeds.
return to relevant publications and biodiversity information management – overview
Relevant publications
Chivian E, Bernstein A. 2008. Sustaining Life: How human health depends on biodiversity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clarkson BD, Wehi PM, Brabyn LK. 2007. Bringing Back Nature into Cities: Urban land environments, indigenous cover and urban restoration. Centre for Biodiversity and Ecology Research Report No. 52. Hamilton: Biodiversity and Ecology Research, Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, The University of Waikato.
Clarkson BD, Meurk, CD. 2004. Greening the City: Bringing biodiversity back into the urban environment. Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture Conference, Christchurch, 21–24 October. Ecological Management & Restoration 5(2): 150–152.
Denyer K, Shaw W. 2002. Areas of Significant Indigenous Vegetation and Habitats of Indigenous Fauna in the Waikato Region – Guidelines to apply regional criteria and determine level of significance. Hamilton: Environment Waikato.
Department of Conservation & Ministry for the Environment. 2007. Protecting Our Places: Information about the Statement of National Priorities for Protecting Rare and Threatened Biodiversity on Private Land. Wellington:Ministry for the Environment.
Froude VA. 1997. Implementing the Biodiversity Protection Provisions in the Resource Management Act: Progress to date. Wellington: Pacific Eco-Logic Resource Management Associates.
Froude VA. 2000. Review of criteria for assessing ecological significance in the Marlborough context. In VA Froude, G Hunter (eds.) Baseline Ecological Study for the Wairau/Awatere Section of Marlborough District. Landcare Research Contract Report LC9900/148.
Green W. 2006. Sustaining New Zealand’s Biodiversity: A progress report.
Green W, Clarkson B. 2006. Turning the Tide? A Review of the First Five Years of the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy: The Synthesis Report.
Hitchmough R, Leigh Bull L, Cromarty P. (compilers). 2007. New Zealand Threat Classification System Lists – 2005. Wellington: Science & Technical Publishing, Department of Conservation.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ML Parry, OF Canziani, JP Palutikof, PJ van der Linden, CE Hanson (eds.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Kessels G. 2004. Action Bio-Community – In Search of the Right Mix: An investigation of tools for biodiversity management. Kessels and Associates Limited.
McGuinness CA. 2001. The Conservation Requirements of New Zealand’s Nationally Threatened Invertebrates. Threatened Species Occasional Publication No. 20. Wellington: Department of Conservation.
Ministry for the Environment 1997. The State of New Zealand’s Environment 1997. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment.
Ministry for the Environment 2007. Environment New Zealand 2007. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment.
Mullooly G. 2007. Towards a strategic direction for biodiversity enhancement: “The whole of Northland Project”. Hamilton: New Zealand Landcare Trust.
Norton DA, Roper-Lindsay J. 2004. Assessing significance for biodiversity conservation on private land in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 28(2): 295–305.
Walker S, Cieraad E, Grove P, Lloyd K, Myers S, Park T, Porteous T. 2007. Guide for the Users of the Threatened Environment Classification. Retrieved from http://www.biocommunity.org.nz/managed_content/files/tecuserguidev1.1.pdf (PDF) (13 September 2010). (Discussion of habitat loss, fragmentation, species area curve, limitations of databases, values of threatened environments as well as importance of protecting large continuous areas of forest/vegetation and fragments.)
Walker S, Price R, Rutledge D. 2008. New Zealand’s remaining indigenous cover: recent changes and biodiversity protection needs. Science for Conservation 284. Retrieved from http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/science-and-technical/sfc284entire.pdf (PDF) (13 September 2010).
Whaley KJ, Clarkson BD, Leathwick JR. 1995. Assessment of criteria used to determine “significance” of natural areas in relation to section 6(c) of the Resource Management Act. Landcare Research Report LC9596/021.
return to relevant publications and biodiversity information management – overview
