Sanctuaries of New Zealand

This website is designed to provide current, relevant, and best-practice information to those engaged in managing biodiversity sanctuaries in New Zealand, and to promote these sanctuaries to those interested in learning how they are contributing to New Zealand biodiversity restoration, or who may wish to visit them.

The Sanctuaries of New Zealand is an informal network of biodiversity sanctuaries that share common goals and approaches in their efforts to restore New Zealand's special biodiversity. They are a group of projects that aim to:

• Eradicate the full suite of pests (or achieve near-zero pest densities) from their chosen areas
• Reintroduce missing species including many rare and endangered species
• Involve local communities in restoration

Each project is an experiment to restore a New Zealand ecosystem to a state dominated by diverse and abundant native species and their interactions, and not dominated by introduced predators (e.g., stoats, ship rats) or competitors (e.g., brushtail possums, feral goats). Common approaches or issues for these projects are:

• Use of pest-proof fences
• Ongoing intensive management of introduced pests
• Using geographically isolated areas such as near-shore islands or peninsulas
• Managing a permanent and substantial risk of reinvasion by pests
• What, when and how to translocate
• Monitoring changes and reporting success
• Economic and social sustainability
• The contribution and potential of sanctuaries to reaching New Zealand's biodiversity goals.

Information on these issues and links to the projects involved can be found on the following pages