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Biodiversity Native land cover
Native land cover by LENZ class
Lowland environments, some recent soils and the eastern South Island plains are Land Environments of New Zealand (LENZ) classes that have lost substantial native land cover since human settlement.
As an example, the western and southern North Island lowlands and eastern South Island plains have lost 95.8 per cent and 92 per cent of their respective original native land cover. In contrast, the central mountains and Southern Alps have lost less than 6.7 per cent and 1 per cent respectively of their original native land cover.
The 20 land environments of New Zealand as shown by level one of the Land Environments of New Zealand (LENZ) classification
Data (including text description) for above map
Data source: Land Environments of New Zealand.
Extent of legal protection by LENZ class
Where native land cover does remain within the lowland environments, some recent soils and the eastern South Island plains classes, there is mostly low to medium legal protection for conservation purposes (between 5 per cent and 40 per cent). In particular, this has implications for the threatened species that require unmodified lowland habitats to survive.
Percentage of native land cover in 2002 by land environment, with the percentage that is legally protected in 2006.
Data source: Landcare Research
Data (text description) for above graph
For example, the western and southern North Island lowlands and eastern South Island plains had 21.4 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively of their remaining native land cover under legal protection in 2006.
This contrasts with the central mountains and Southern Alps which had 76.4 per cent and 94.2 per cent respectively of their remaining native land cover under legal protection in 2006.
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Information on the types of legal protection in New Zealand, including trends in the area protected, is presented in native land cover with legal protection.
The national priorities for protecting rare and threatened native biodiversity on private land set out four national priorities. The first national priority is to protect indigenous vegetation associated with land environments (defined by LENZ at Level lV) that have 20 percent or less remaining in indigenous cover. Almost 468,000 hectares of unprotected native vegetation is in land environments reduced to less than 20 per cent of their original extent. Data tables and maps for national priority one are available for all regions of New Zealand.
This information has come from the latest national state of the environment report Environment New Zealand 2007.
Move to next variable reported on for native land cover: with legal protection.
Last updated: December 2008
