A DISTINCTIVE LAND

        Few people live in quite so lonely a part of the world as New Zealanders. If you turn a globe so that New Zealand is at the center of its own hemisphere, almost all of the half of the surface of the Earth you can see in water. Two large, elongated islands in the center of this watery hemisphere, with smaller islands scattered around them, make up the unique island nation of New Zealand.

        It is not a large country � in area about the same size as the British Isles or Japan � and is home to a small population, about 3.3 million. The South Island, larger of the two main islands, has a scant 865.000 people.

        New Zealand as a whole, and especially the South Island, is not only isolated but also thinly populated. Isolation and a small population have helped to make New Zealand a distinctive country.

New Zealand�s only neighboring land masses are the frozen wastes of Antarctica to the south and largely arid Australia to the north-west. The term �Australia� was coined last century as a handy term of reference for New Zealand and Australia do seem similar and close neighborus. They are sometimes thought to be the same country.

        When Mark Twain wrote a book about a visit to the South Pacific at the end of last century, he felt obliged �to tell the reader where New Zealand is�:

�All people think that New Zealand is close Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and that you cross to it on a bridge. But that is not so. It is not close to anything but lies by itself out in the water. It is nearest to Australia, but not near. The gap between is very wide. It will be a surprise to the reader, as it was to me, to learn that the distance from Australia to New Zealand is really twelve or thirteen hundred miles, and that there is no bridge.�

        Although Australia is New Zealand�s nearest neighbour, the countries are quite different. Australians and New Zealanders are cousins in the family of nations, but will not admit to any closer relationship than that.

        Distance from other land masses and isolation from other human communities have shaped New Zealand�s human culture. It was the last major habitable land area anywhere in the world to be reached by people. The first Polynesian seafarers stepped ashore on a New Zealand beach about 1000 years ago, by which time many other countries already had long histories.

        Distance and isolation have shaped more than New Zealand�s distinctive human culture flora and fauna reflect that New Zealand has not been connected to any other landmass since the break up of the great southern continent Gondwanaland began about 80 million years ago. Then sea-floor spreading to the west and south of the New Zealand mass split the country away and floated it out into the South Pacific. Isolated, New Zealand�s plant and animal life evolved in ways that made them distinct from the flora and fauna of any other land.

        New Zealand is not just a distinctive country; it is also one of the strange contrasts and contradictions. It is an island nation, but its geology and many of its landscapes are continental rather than insular. Geologically, New Zealand is the tip of a largely drowned continental mass, which includes the undersea Chatham Rise and Campbell Plateau.

        New Zealand has the shortest human history of any significant land mass on earth, but one of its native animals, the tuatara, is a unique survivor from ancient geological times, a living fossil which has changed little in 200 million years.

        The country has an international image as one of the �greenest� countries on earth, yet in the past 1000 years, people have caused enormous changes in the New Zealand environment.

Finally, New Zealanders have chosen as their national symbol a bird, the kiwi, that is in many respects � its body temperature, its hair-like feathers, its living and feeding habits � as much a mammal as a bird.

        To come to understand New Zealand you will have to learn that New Zealand is, as one of its ports said:

�Something different, something nobody counted on.�

THE NEW ZEALANDERS

        The people who call themselves New Zealanders come from a great variety of ethnic backgrounds: the indigenous Maori; European, mostly British but also Dalmatians who arrived last century and Dutch who came this; Chinese, who came to work the goldfields in the XIX ^th century; Pacific Islanders, who have come in sufficient numbers in recent decades to make Auckland the city with the largest number of Polynesians of any city in the world; and sprinkling each of a great number of other races � Indians, Vietnamese, Poles, Chileans, North Americans, Greeks, Cypriots.

        What the Maori first-comers share with those who are descended from the XIX^th century immigrants from Europe, is that their ancestors, to reach New Zealand, undertook long and often perilous voyages.

          The distant origins of the Maori lie in South-East Asia. Their ancestors migrated into the central Pacific, where Polynesian culture flowered on hundreds of scattered islands, then on to New Zealand, which was reached some time before 1000 A.D. In New Zealand, on Polynesia�s largest land mass, the Maori evolved a remarkable culture, a �stone-age� tribal society which reached extraordinarily high levels of achievement in carving wood and in fashioning artefacts of stone and bone. They handed down a detailed oral history and rich poetical traditions, some of which have survived to enrich New Zealand culture today.

        For centuries after the last migrations from East Polynesia, there was no contact with the outside world. Abel Tasman�s brief, unhappy visit of 1642 was followed, more than a century later, by the three voyages of James Cook�s visits first a trickle, then a flood, Of European newcomers.

        New Zealand�s XIX^th century European immigrants made the longest migration of any group in human history, crossing half the globe in cramped, unhealthy conditions in small soiling ships. The voyage was still arduous in the 1870s, as a steam replaced sail.

        The numbers coming to New Zealand between 1840 (when organized settlement began) and 1900 were small, compared to the huge numbers who crossed the Atlantic in the same years. By 1900 the population of New Zealand was still under one million. The Maori had dwindled to about 45.000 and were thought to be on their way to be on their way to extinction, a false expectation based largely on ignorance of the strength of Maori culture in rural communities.

        The country�s population did not top one million until 1908. It took until the early 1950s to reach two million, then only twenty years to reach three million. The years after World War II saw significant changes in the New Zealand population � new arrivals from the British Isles and elsewhere and the movement of large numbers of Maori from rural areas into the cities.

        Although New Zealanders come from a great variety of ethnic backgrounds, about 80%, trace their main ancestry to Britain. The Maori are another 12.5% and Pacific Islanders3.5, leaving about 4% of �others�. Because these �others� have been so relatively few among an overwhelmingly British and Polynesian population, New Zealand lacks �Chinatowns� or �Little Italys�. But many groups of non-British ancestry maintain their own cultural traditions.

        The important racial and cultural relationship within New Zealand is between the Maori, the �tangata wheua� or people of the land and �all the rest�. The term �Pakeha� is commonly used to denote New Zealanders of European descent; the Maori themselves also talk about �tauiwi� � �the strangers�, �the outsiders�, although the world does not have all the overtones of those English equivalents.

        In the XIX^th century, the Maori suffered first defeat in Land Wars, and then economic deprivation. But inspired by such notable XX^th century leaders as Apirana Ngata, Maui Pomare, Princess Te Puea, Wiremu Ratana, and others, Maori culture survived and is today enjoying a vigorous renaissance.

          The Maori provide the only unique strand in New Zealand�s culture. All the other threads were contributed from elsewhere; the Maori thread alone is New Zealand�s own. To many New Zealanders, the equitable adjustment of political, social, economic and cultural relationships between the Maori and those who came later will be the real rest of New Zealand�s success as a nation, more important even than solving the country�s economic problems.

        New Zealand long prided itself as the country with the best race relations in the world. Maori reassertion of their rights has highlighted such disturbing features in New Zealand society as the number of Maori in prison and poor Maori achievement in the formal education system. Some of the former pride is how the indigenous people and the later new settlers adjusted to each other has evaporated.

        But grounds for optimism remain. The Waitangi Tribual (named after the Treaty o 1840 under which sovereignty in New Zealand passed to the British Crown) is providing a framework for meeting longstanding Maori land claims. Restoring resources to Maori hands, and the reassertion of pride in Maori identity, could yet see New Zealand justify its claim to have achieved the world�s best accommodation between an indigenous people and European settlers. One small of this is that you are much more likely to hear Maori spoken, on radio or a television, or in the street, than ten years ago.

THE LAND

       New Zealand�s landforms are shaped, in part, by the volcanic and earthquake activity associated with these two �subduction� zones, north and south of the country. The enormous, conflicting geological forces of these two zones are wrenching and twisting New Zealand along the lines of huge faults. Blocks of rock are moving both horizontally and vertically in relation to each other.
       New Zealand is, therefore, a broken, uplifted land. The movement of these huge blocks of rock often takes the form of devastating earthquakes. Since European settlement there have been several � Wellington in 1855, Murchison in 1929 and Napier in 1931, the last the worst for loss of life and destruction of property.
       Vigorous geological activity has occurred along the line of the Alpine Fault, which runs in a virtually straight line for 600 km up the western side of the South Island. The Alpine Fault is one of the largest distinct geological features in the world. A horizontal displacement of more than 400 km has occurred along its length; rocks in North-west Nelson, at the top end of the South Island, match up exactly with rocks in Fiordland, in the Island�s far south-west.
       Displacement along the Alpine and other faults, as the two plates grind against or ride each other, has also been vertical. Periods of intense mountain building, have been interspersed with periods when erosion has worn the mountains down again, reducing New Zealand to an archipelago of low islands, separated by shallow seas. In these seas never sedimentary rocks have been laid down, only to be stripped off by erosion when mountain building begins again.
       The Southern Alps are only the latest of a series of mountain ranges. The rocks of which they are composed are far older than the mountains themselve
       The latest period of mountain uplift, which has created the Southern Alps and the other present-day rangers. May have totaled as much as 20.000 m. New Zealand�s highest mountain, Aoraki or Mountain Cook, is only 3704 m. high because erosion has worth the mountains down almost, but not quite, as fast as they have been uplifted.
       In the South Island, the glaciers of successive �ice ages� scoured the mountains down, gouging out valleys and building up broad outwash plains The last of the �ice ages� began about 2.4 million years ago, and ended only 10.000 years ago. The North Island has a landscape formed partly by fire � the volcanoes and geothermal activity of the volcanic zone. The South Island landscape has been shaped by ice.
      These vast and vigorous geological forces have fashioned a varied and dramatic landscape. The South Island experienced the most uplift and was more heavily glaciated during the cold spells of the last ice age. So south of Cook Strait are the country�s highest mountains, its largest remaining glaciers and its broadest plains. The North Island has the country�s largest lake, Taupo, but the South Island has many more large lakes than the north, lying in glacier-carved hollows.
      The mountainous backbone of the country continues across Cook Strait into the rangers that trend north-east from Wellington to end with Mount Hikurangi on the East Cape. ) Its claim to be the first part of the world to greet the new day is based on New Zealand�s position just west of the International Dateline.) Much of the rest of the North Island is lower, but still steep and broken hill country, mostly of soft grey �papa� rock.
     Old volcanic rocks are found in several places on the South Island. One of its most conspicuous geographical features, Banks Peninsula, is made up of the eroded cones of volcanoes which erupted millions of years ago. The South Island also has hot springs. But only on the North Island are active volcanoes still found. Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and offshore White Island erupt periodically, sometimes violently. Tarawera exploded in 1886. Taranaki (Mount Egmont) is thought to be dormant, not dead, and the volcanoes of the Auckland volcanic field could yet erupt under the country�s largest city. Long ago, the bowl of Lake Taupo was formed by one of the largest known volcanic eruptions.
     Variety also characterizes the country�s long coastline � 5650 km which include dramatic fiords sculpted by ice, long dreary shingle beaches, exposed rocky coasts, sandy beaches where superb surf runs high, and the sheltered harbours of drowned river valleys or eroded volcanic cones. But if there it a typical New Zealand seascape it would be a charming, secluded bay, its golden sand embraced by bush-clad rocky headlands.
     The length of the country also accounts for variety in its landscapes and coastline. New Zealand stretches more than 1600 km from Cape Reinga to the uninhabited southern tip of Stewart Island. In the north, the country has an almost sub-tropical feel; mangrove swamps fringe sheltered coasts and remnants of kauri forest resemble tropical rain forest. Auckland can look tropically lush to someone flying in from the South Island. But on Bluff Hill, though, almost sub-antarctic scrub is buffeted by winds that blow without obstruction almost from Antarctica itself.
     There are also differences between east and west. The prevailing wind is westerly, giving the west coasts of both islands more rain than the east coasts, which suffer periodically from drought. The same wind which dumps huge quantities of rain on the South Island�s West Cast, blows across Canterbury as the hot, dry and enervating nor�wester.
     A mountainous land surrounded by sea, New Zealand has a fickle climate. Cold snaps can have people shivering in the middle of summer, but on bright winter days, men can be comfortable in shirt sleeves. But New Zealand�s climate is never extreme. Snow is seldom a problem for more than a day or two, even in Dunedin, and while mid-summer Auckland can be muggy, it is never stifling. New Zealand livestock never have to be put into shelter and new Zealand children play outdoors year round.

THE WILD PLACES

        Much of New Zealand still seems completely natural, little affected by the relatively brief human presence on these islands. But Polynesian and European caused dramatic environmental changes when they reached New Zealand.
        When the Maori arrived about 1000 years ago, most of the country was forested. New Zealand�s forests were among the most magnificent temperate forests on earth, dominated in different parts of the country by different species � kauri in the north, totara in the central North Island, rimu, matai and kahikatea in lowland areas of both Islands, beech in the drier mountainous regions, rata and kamahi in the wet, precipitous valleys of Westland.
        These forests teemed with a prolific and varied birdlife � for in the absence of mammals (with the single exception of bats) and with few reptiles (and no snakes), birds evolved in New Zealand to fill ecological niches occupied in other countries by land animals. The most striking example of this was the large flightless moa which grazed grass and scrub lands and forests fringes.
        Though probably never numbering more than a quarter of a million, the Maori significantly altered New Zealands environment, especially in eastern areas of both Islands. There forests, at least partly because the Maori lit fires, gave way to scrub and grass lands. Several species of bird were hunted or driven to extinction � most notably, again, the moa, but  also the largest eagle that ever existed.
        Far more sweeping changes occurred when Europeans transformed large parts of primeval New Zealand into farmland. Over vast tracts of North Island hill country, the bush was felled and the created land sown in pasture. Elsewhere tussock and scrub gave way to introduced pastures or crops. Plants and animals arriving with the Europeans intensified these pressures on the environment. Deer, opossums and chamois modified bush and mountain country. Even land which looks completely unchanged since New Zealand was first populated, has been subtly but significantly affected. Fragile, and even not so fragile, eco-systems have been severely damaged by introduced plant and animal pests. Rats, cats and stoats have wreaked havoc with the country�s birdlife � it is estimated that more than 40% of the bird species breeding in New Zealand when the first Polynesians came ashore are now extinct.
        Even at its wildest, New Zealand today is no longer the land humans came to originally. Their coming changed natural New Zealand forever.
        But vast tracts of New Zealand still look untamed, places where the ancient rhythms of the untouched land that New Zealand remained until a scant thousand years ago can still be experienced. Unspoiled landscapes and large areas of wilderness are found especially on the South Island, where only 850.000 people live on more than half the country�s total land area.
       With twelve national parks, New Zealand has a larger area of its land set aside as national parks are on the South Island and the largest of these, Fiordland, is more than one and a quarter million hectares in area. Other large areas of virtually uninhabited and little modified land lie outside the system � the country�s twenty forest parks, for example, the largest of which, North-west Nelson, is 377.000 hectares in area.
        The south-western corner of the South Island, comprising four national parks (Fiordland, Aspiring, Mount Cook and Westland) and also large tracts of unoccupied mountain country adjacent to them, has been designated a World Heritage Area. In this vast area of pristine lakes, of turbulent steams and great rivers, of dense forests below lofty glaciated mountains or sheer-sided rocky peaks, the human touch is seen only in a few mountain huts or along shingle roads that penetrate only the fringes of the wilderness. It is one of greatest remaining wilderness in the world�s temperature zones.
        Even in the more populated, less mountainous North Island, there remain large areas of near-wilderness. The landscapes may be less dramatic than those of the South Island, and the untouched areas smaller in extent, but the tangled Tararura, Ruahine, Kaimanava, Raukumara and other Rangers, rocky crests rise above dense bush. Two of the North Islands largest wild areas, the central Wanganui Valley and the Urewera Country, are national parks. So are the mountains of the central volcanic plateau, given to the people of New Zealand by their tribal owners last century to become the country�s first national park.
        Even though most new Zealanders are city dwellers, an awareness that large parts of their country remain wild and untamed colors how many New Zealanders think of their country. Being able to escape �civilization� for the profound quiet and untouched splendor of the country�s great wilderness is a precious part of the birthright of New Zealanders.

NEW ZEALAND TODAY

       For some years after its recovery from the Great Depression, until Britain�s entry into the European Common Market and the �oil shocks� of the 1970s, New Zealand was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. National wealth underpinned a comprehensive welfare state, a system which embodied the sense of community and fair play and the wish for an egalitarian society, without extremes of wealth or poverty, that most New Zealanders shared.

        Serious economic difficulties, and efforts to solve them in the 1980s by freeing up the economy, have shaken and confused many New Zealanders, who face the 1990s troubled by the development, or revealing, or more marked discrepancies of wealth and opportunity than many New Zealanders are happy with. Questions of the country�s race relations and of the colonists� treatment of the Maori people, coupled with the realization that they have done more harm to the New Zealand environment than was recognized previously, have further shaken for many the image of who they stand for as New Zealanders.

         For all this, New Zealand remains a fortunate country. Few would say now with the blind confidence of previous generations that it is the best country in the world in which to bring up children. But beneath the troubles of recent decades remains an underlying assurance that New Zealand is not a bad place to be.

        New Zealand is not as wealthy a country, relative to others, as it once was, but a great majority of its citizens enjoy a comfortable standard of living.

     Beneath recent racial tension is a fundamental respect between the races, and a willingness to meet just Maori claims, that augurs well for the future.

        The country may lack the cultural excitement of London or New York, or even Sydney, but is well on its way to forging a lively and distinctive culture of its own.

        Pollution of the New Zealand environment is worse than was once acknowledged, but New Zealanders enjoy cleaner air and water and easier access to wilderness than almost any other people on Earth.

        The balance sheet adds up decisively to the advantage of those who call this distinctive island nation their home.