Spotlight on Biodiversity
Despite being a world leader in threatened species management, Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity and ecosystems continue to decline. More than 4,000 species are now threatened or at risk of extinction. Many of these are endemic.
Most conservation laws are at least 30 years old and our primary species protection legislation, the Wildlife Act, dates to 1953. These statutes are from a different era and pre-date awareness of both the global biodiversity and climate change crises.
Current laws make no formal distinction between introduced and native species or those that are common and critically endangered. Aotearoa New Zealand is an outlier within the developed world in having no dedicated threatened species legislation requiring listing, protection and recovery planning for our most precious and rare flora and fauna. EDS’s Conservation Law Reform Project has developed proposals to modernise the country’s wildlife laws and improve biodiversity protection on public conservation land.
EDS also advocates for greater biodiversity protection in resource management processes and the courts. This is particularly in relation to identification and protection of indigenous biodiversity on private land via Significant Natural Area overlays.
