Our oceans are alive. Discover where.
Dip beneath the surface of New Zealand's oceans and you'll find a rich diversity of underwater worlds, vibrant with stunning marine life.
This resource - Shining a Spotlight on the Biodiversity of New Zealand's Marine Ecoregion - maps life in our oceans, revealing where the hotspots of biodiversity are located. .
Click on sections 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 to explore maps of New Zealand's oceans, highlighting the most significant habitats for our marine species.
To access the downloadable pdf including full publication details, click here.
The topography of the New Zealand seascape. The orange red areas around the main islands are depths less than 200 m while the deep purple in the Kermadec Trench northeast of the North Island is over 10,000 m deep.
Undersea New Zealand, NIWA
Shining a Spotlight was created through a workshop with New Zealand’s leading marine scientists. These marine experts summarized and mapped the places in our marine ecoregion of particular significance for biodiversity, in a workshop led by WWF-New Zealand.
The workshop participants' statement on the state of knowledge for New Zealand's marine biodiversity:
We marine scientists of various specialisation, recognise New Zealand's oceanic environment and ecosystems as unique and highly regionalised, with a level of biodiversity of global significance.
A great deal remains unknown about New Zealand's marine environment; vast regions are unexplored, interactions between species and their environments are not understood, and we lack the expertise to recognise and document many of the components of the biota. Consequently, the capacity to use and manage marine resources, or even identify possible human impacts is limited.
If we New Zealanders are to live in a sustainable relationship with our oceanic environment and benefit from the use of the marine resources of our EEZ, we need more information. Our current lack of knowledge is alarming and does not represent a sound basis for reliable policy and management decisions.
We urge immediate action by the Government and other stakeholders to ensure the capacity of relevant institutions to address this situation.