The Thirty-Year Conservation Revolution In New Zealand: An Introduction

This special issue reviews the state of biodiversity conservation in New Zealand, following the establishment of the Department of Conservation (DOC) in 1987. Here we summarise events that led to the formation of DOC, and the unprecedented series of changes in how biodiversity conservation has been viewed and conducted. Subsequent papers in this issue outline the successes, failures and key technological shifts in biodiversity conservation in New Zealand in the past 30 years; how visionary people and institutions have instigated conservation at landscape scales and in urban areas; the growing roles of Maori and non-Maori communities; and audacious new goals that reflect continuing attitudinal changes to the conservation of native biodiversity alongside the global and local implications of climate change.