Natural History of New Zealand

Forest and Bird, Issue 265, 1 August 1992, Page 47

Natural History of New Zealand

Ian Close

by Nic Bishop (Hodder & Stoughton) $59.95 New Zealand has long-needed a good up-to-date and well-illus-trated overview of this country’s natural world. Nic Bishop has come up with the goods. Bishop begins by explaining why New Zealand’s natural world before the late arrival of humans was so different from anywhere else, and then takes us

through New Zealand, habitat by habitat, concentrating on the processes that bind ecosystems together. The book’s strength is in the details and examples of the natural interactions and processes which Bishop provides. The book shows how organisms have adapted to live in their

own particular part of the world — the mountains, the inland waters, geothermal pools, caves, the coast, islands and even farmland and exotic forests. A chapter on the sea takes a welcome look at the world’s last great wilderness, one whose workings we still only poorly understand. Of course the sad thing is that the more New Zealanders learn about their natural history the more they find out what has been lost and what is in the process of being lost. As Bishop says: A growing understanding of the importance of ecology has laid the basis for the wide concerns, not just for rare plants and animals but for the continued welfare of this planet’s environment. We are now starting to realise that we have been consuming the very environment we need to survive. Financial assistance from Tasman Forestry as part of the Tasman Accord project has helped to keep this beautifully produced and copiously illustrated book at a reasonable price.