Wild New Zealand

Rating:
Summary: A good overview of the natural history of New Zealand.
Review: Although this book is pricey, it's pretty good. Over 200 coffee-table book-size pages, with fairly detailed text and over 400 colour photographs, it is a stunningly visual and fairly exhaustive natural history of New Zealand. Contributors include the World Wide Fund for Nature, New Zealand Department of Conservation, leading scientists, and a host of other contributors. From the small Kermadec Islands in the north, to the southernmost oceanic islands, the natural history and beauty of this wonderful land is faithfully depicted. There are also interesting discussions on ecotourism and conservation, and the indigenous and European impacts on the native flora and fauna.

There is a little bit of south pacific paradise in New Zealand, a little bit of wild antarctic, a little bit of alpine seclusion, and a little bit of volcanic other-worldliness, to the place. Some of the walks are world class-as anyone who has done the Routeburn (me!), or the Milford Track, or Tongariro National Park will tell you. These areas are all described and depicted in the text.

Its cultural and natural history of course, is exquisite-New Zealand has, for example, a great abundance of exotic and endemic birdlife in particular, which evolved to fill vacant ecological niches in the absence of mammals. New Zealand was separated from the ancient Gondwana landmass very early, and mammals simply weren't around yet to evolve and compete with other wildlife. Jared Diamond in the book "The Third Chimpanzee" describes the initial polynesian visitation about 1000 years ago, as something like finding life on another planet. Huge Moa birds and the world's largest eagle (now extinct) greeted them. Moa hunting grounds and bones are still being found today.

It was the last great landmass to be found by humans, and still retains much of its ancient exotic beauty and ruggedness, faithfully depicted in this book.