About New Zealand

Geography

New Zealand, about 2012 km (1250 mi) southeast of Australia, consists of two main islands and a number of smaller outlying islands so scattered that they range from the tropical to the Antarctic.  The country is the size of Colorado.  New Zealand's two main components are the North Island and the South Island, separated by Cook Strait.  The North Island (115,777 sq km; 44,281 sq mi) is 829 km (515 mi) long and volcanic in its south-central part.  This area contains many hot springs and beautiful geysers.  The South Island (151,215 sq km; 58,093 sq mi) has the Southern Alps along its western side, with Aoraki Mount Cook (3754 m; 12,316 ft) the highest point in the country.  Other inhabited islands include Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, and Great Barrier Island.  The largest of the uninhabited outlying islands are the Auckland Islands (606 sq km; 234 sq mi), Campbell Island (114 sq km; 44 sq mi), the Antipodes Islands (62 sq km; 24 sq mi), and the Kermadec Islands (34 sq km; 13 sq mi).

History

Maori were the first inhabitants of New Zealand, arriving on the islands 800-1000 years ago.  Maori oral history maintains that they came to the island in seven canoes from other parts of Polynesia.  In 1642, New Zealand was explored by Abel Tasman, a Dutch navigator.  British sailor, Captain James Cook, made three voyages to the islands, beginning in 1769.  Britain formally annexed the islands in 1840.  The Treaty of Waitangi (signed February 6, 1840) between the British and several Maori tribes promised to protect Maori land if the Maori recognized British rule.  Encroachment on the land by British settlers was relentless, however, and skirmishes between the two groups intensified.  From the outset, the country has been in the forefront in instituting social welfare legislation.  New Zealand was the world's first country to give women the right to vote (1893).  It adopted old-age pensions (1898); a national child welfare programme (1907); social security for the elderly, widows, and orphans, along with family benefit payments; minimum wages; a 40-hour work week and unemployment and health insurance (1938); and socialized medicine (1941).  New Zealand fought with the Allies in both world wars as well as in Vietnam and Korea.  In 1999, it became part of the UN peacekeeping force sent to East Timor.  In recent years, New Zealand has introduced extremely liberal social policies.  In June 2003, parliament legalized prostitution and in December 2004, same-sex civil unions were recognized.

 

Government

New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy.  The Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II whose representative in New Zealand is the Governor General, currently Lt Gen The Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae.  There is a single chamber in Parliament, the House of Reprentatives, whose members are elected under the Mixed Member Proportional system.  There are 69 electorates, 62 for the General Roll and 7 for the Maori Roll.  After each census (every 5 years), those of Maori descent have the chance to exercise the option whether they want to be on the General Roll or the Maori Roll.  In total, theoretically, there are 120 seats in Parliament; the 51 non-electorate seats are filled by members of parties in relation to the percentage of the national vote that the parties received, provided that they have at least 5% or win one electorate. Currently, however, there are 121 members because the Maori Party won more electorates than their proportion of the vote entitled them to.  The present government is led by the National Party which has agreements with the ACT party, the Maori Party and the United Future Party over votes of confidence and supply.  The current Prime Minister is John Key.

 

 New Zealand’s Plants and Animals

New Zealand separated from the great southern land mass of Gondwanaland about 80 million years ago so there has been significant time over which the plants and animals could diverge and evolve from their ancestors on Gondwanaland.  In addition, there is quite a climatic diversity from sub-tropical to sub-antarctic.  As a result, there is great diversity among the plants and animals and a very high proportion of them are endemic, i.e., found nowhere else in the world.

Of the approximately 2400 species of flowering plant, 80% are endemic and, for alpine plants, the level of endemicity rises to 93%.  Of these flowering plants, over 800 are in various categories of the threat of extinction.  One of the contributors to this parlous state is that there are now more introduced (exotic) plants established in the wild than native plants.  They often out-compete the native plants.  More information about New Zealand’s native plants may be found at www.nzpcn.org.nz

The position of animals is similar.  Half of the world’s penguin species breed in the New Zealand region, as do half the world’s petrels and shearwaters and over half the world’s albatrosses.  Because of the time of separation from Gondwanaland, the only native terrestrial mammals in New Zealand were three species of bat of which only two survive.  This lack of mammal predators resulted in a high proportion of flightless birds or poor flyers.  Compared with other temperate areas, New Zealand has many more species of lizard than comparable other areas, e.g., about 60 species compared with Great Britain’s three.  Two different estimates suggest that New Zealand has 20000 species of insect only half of which have been described.  Like the birds, many of these insects have become flightless; the largest is a giant weta, which, at a maximum weight of about 70g, is among the heaviest of the world’s insects.

As a result of this brief introduction, you can understand why the well known American ecologist Jared Diamond said that: “New Zealand is as close as we will get to the opportunity to study life on another planet”.  To try, as far as possible to retain this unique biological condition, New Zealand’s biosecurity laws are very stringent and visitors must declare at the border ANY biological material that they have in their possession.  Failure to do so will result in the imposition of an instant fine and possible prosecution.

Last updated 9 April 2012