Ngā Uruora

What significance should be placed on a few surviving remnants of the pre-agricultural landscape of Aoteraoa, and what would Joseph Banks made of his 'properest place for a colony...'?

The continued existence of the fragile Nikau Scenic Reserve near Paparoa is an anomaly amidst the dairy country. As it turns out, it's survival is linked to the story of the Western Black Petrel.

Papaitonga is the name that Sir Walter Buller gave to his country estate. It was his site for a 'grand theatre' of Maori artefacts, and also the place where the philosophy of modern conservation was formed.

Ecologist Geoff Park goes in search of the reason why a small stand of ancient Kahikatea trees on a bend of the Mokau River has survived, despite the onslaught of forest-clearing and dairying.

Petone foreshore was the 'beachhead' of the New Zealand Company who had arrived expecting to find tens of thousands of acres of flat land suitable for agriculture. Settlers were to be bitterly disappointed.

Ecologist Geoff Park examines the impact of European agriculture on the Hauraki Plains country, once the site of the richest pre-colonial Maori culture. It's also where the country's future landscape was shaped.