Endangered Species
Protecting endangered species is crucial. They have a fundamental right to exist, just as we do.
Human activity is the biggest threat to wildlife, through illegal hunting, overfishing, degradation of land and deforestation.
The best way to protect many of them is to protect their habitats - the places they live in: the forests, the oceans, the rivers. These places make up the biodiverse world that supplies us with a healthy environment and many natural materials from which we make our food, medicine, and other products. It is our lifeline as well as theirs.
It is essential to maintain the ecological balance of the world we live in. We must not forget that we are living in it, not out of it. Many species have already become extinct and some are on the verge of extinction as a result of the loss of habitat due to human activities. Without natural habitats, wildlife cannot survive.
Humans can restore some part of the balance, but some of the damage we have caused is irreversible. We cannot bring back extinct species or restore some ecosystems but there is still a great deal that we can do.
Your urgent support is needed
Mokihinui River threatened
The Mokihinui is the West Coast’s third largest river, draining the uplands and mountains of the Lyell, Radiant, Allen, Glasgow and Matiri Ranges. The river and the forests of its catchment provide habitat for 16 threatened species, including long-tailed bats, western weka, kereru, and powelliphanta snails.
Meridian Energy has proposed a vast hydro scheme – an 85-metre high dam which will flood the spectacular gorge the Mokihinui river flows through. Fourteen kilometres of gorge will disappear under 80 metres of water, and hectares of river bed and forest will be flooded. Priceless habitat will be lost again in the name of generating more power, and biodiversity and wilderness will pay the biggest cost.
WWF New Zealand: Albatrosses Campaign
Over half of the world’s 24 albatross species breed in New Zealand, and nine of those breed only in New Zealand. No other country is home to so many albatross species.
WWF New Zealand actively campaigns to protect albatrosses from their biggest threat: long line and trawl fishing in the Southern Ocean. Tens of thousands of seabirds are killed in long line fishing operations in the Southern Ocean every year. In the New Zealand EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) approximately 65,000 albatrosses and petrels have been killed in the last 20 years.
Planting days in parks
Every year during planting season (winter), hundreds of trees and shrubs are planted at our Regional Parks. You can be involved! It's fun, sociable and rewarding.
In our Regional Parks we plant native plants and trees to show how parts of Auckland once looked. We plant to protect the things that belong in the parks - native plants, birds, fish and insects and their support systems and food supplies - forest, streams, wetlands, sea. Planting helps maintain and enhance biodiversity
You can find details of planting days on these websites:
Christchurch (CCC)
Wellington (GWC)
Auckland (ARC) and on the EcoEvents site (Ecoevents)
Save a leopard - buy a goat!
Because of human encroachment, shrinking habitat, and a diminished food supply, the snow leopard is now endangered and its numbers continue to shrink. As the remaining cats roam the mountainous terrain of Central Asia and the Himalayan region in search of food, they prey on goats, sheep and other livestock that are easy for the snow leopard to hunt. Unfortunately, when a snow leopard feeds itself on livestock, poor farmers and herders in the region are losing their only source of income. Herders are therefore poaching the snow leopards - to keep them from killing their livestock
However, WWF has a cunning plan... More
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