Story: Human effects on the environment

More links and websites

• Reconstructing initial human settlement impacts on the vegetation of New Zealand

  This page from the Landcare Research – Manaaki Whenua site explains the principles of pollen analysis, how sediment samples are taken and the information they contain.

• The State of New Zealand’s Environment 1997

  This report on the state of the environment was produced in 1997 by the Ministry for the Environment. Some sections have now been updated.

More suggestions and sources

• Anderson, Athol. ‘A fragile plenty: pre-European Māori and the New Zealand environment.’ In Environmental histories of New Zealand, edited by Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, 19–34. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Atkinson, A. E. ‘Introduced mammals in a new environment.’ In Biological invasions in New Zealand, edited by R. B. Allen and W. G. Lee, 49–66. Ecological studies 186. Berlin: Springer, 2006.
• Wilmshurst, J. M., and T. F. G. Higham. ‘Using rat-gnawed seeds to independently date the arrival of Pacific rats and humans to New Zealand.’ The Holocene 14, no. 6 (2004): pp. 801–806.
• Wilson, Kerry-Jayne. Flight of the huia: ecology and conservation of New Zealand’s frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2004.
• Worthy, Trevor H., and Richard N. Holdaway. The lost world of the moa: prehistoric life of New Zealand. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2002.