New Zealand’s land cover has changed heaps since people arrived to these islands. The place that those first settlers saw and what we see today is very different.
Prior to the arrival of people the islands of New Zealand were heavily forested. The wildlife of the islands is incredibly unique, with flightless insects and birds to bats that forage on the ground (lesser short-tailed bat). However, when the first people arrived around 750 years ago that all began changing. Today there still is native forest, but also lots of other land cover that wasn’t here before.
What Was New Zealand’s Land Cover Before People Arrived?
The islands were heavily forested. In fact, forests covered about 80% of the land at that time. The remaining 20% of the land was covered in grasslands or shrubland.
Thus, those first settlers came to islands covered in forest with a few patches of open tussock grasslands or shrublands. Basically all the land was covered in forest except for high up on mountains, some open grasslands, and wetlands.
What Is New Zealand’s Land Cover Today?
In the 750 years since people have been here the land cover has changed a lot.
The dominant land cover before people came was native forest, but now it’s exotic grasslands! Those are areas that people have planted in introduced species of grass that are good for grazing animals such as cattle and sheep.
The amount of land covered in native forest has been reduced from 80% to only 26%. That native forest is either beech forest or a podocarp/broadleaf forest. In addition to the native forest, there are also plantation forests (mostly radiata pine) that comprise about 8% of the country.
Chart of New Zealand’s Land Cover Showing Changes Over Time
This chart shows how the land cover of New Zealand has changed over time since people arrived. Keep in mind that the land cover for 2018 does not equal 100 percent because the remainder is covered in cropland, urban land, and water.