20. Fiordland
Map ID Number: 20
Location: Southwest region of the South Island
Approximate area: 5,196km2
Description of area:
This area contains New Zealand’s only fiords. There are a variety of physical gradients among them. Notable features of the area include a very narrow continental shelf and a near-permanent, low-salinity surface layer within the fiords.
Biological attributes:
Fiordland is a special marine environment in that species normally found in deep water, such as sea pens, glass sponges, and certain corals, emerge in shallow water. The area has high cnidarian faunal diversity including habitat-forming black corals (Antipatharia) and red corals (Stylasteridae). Bryozoan thickets (Adeonellopsis) are found on entrance sills of the fiords. Fiordland also has high algal diversity, a fact that has been largely overlooked until recently. Crustose coralline algae are important in the rock wall communities.
Criteria applied:
Species diversity; special conditions and specialised organisms.
Status and management:
There are two marine reserves, one in Milford Sound and the other in Doubtful Sound. A comprehensive management strategy has been developed to protect the fisheries resources and marine environment, but this has yet to be formally approved in legislation.
State of information:
Large number of scientific papers. University of Otago holds a living bibliography of studies.
References and further reading:
Glasby (1978), Grange (1985, 1988, 1990, 1991b), Grange and Goldberg (1992, 1993a, 1993b), Grange and Singleton (1988), Nelson et al. (2002), Schiel and Hickford (2001), Skerman (1964), Wing (2003).