The significance of the biological resources of New Zealand islands for ecological restoration

Abstract

Islands have historically played a significant role in New Zealand conservation because they contain such a disproportionately large amount of our biological wealth, including primary endemic species that never occurred on mainland New Zealand, pseudo-endemic species that once occurred on the mainland but survive now only on island refugia, and a kind of community structure seldom found outside the New Zealand region. Present knowledge significantly underestimates biodiversity on islands as measured by taxonomic, genetic, and community criteria. In the future, islands will play major roles as sites for ecological restoration programmes, nature sanctuaries, sources of knowledge for restoration goals and methodologies, sources of plant and animal species to be used for translocation to restoration sites, for monitoring of macro-environmental change, and examples to be used in conservation education programmes