Birds of Aotea

Birds of Aotea, Status Of The Birds Of Aotea Great Barrier Island , a “State of Environment” update on the birds of Aotea Great Barrier Island was launched at Aotea Great Barrier Environmental Trust’s 20th anniversary celebration in February 2023.

This document updates the information on land and sea birds contained in the Great Barrier Island State of the Environment Report, 2010. The new report is available in hardcopy as well as online. Please contact us for more information on printed copies.  Digital copies are available below.

More regular theme-based updates are being adopted in environmental reporting in New Zealand, as well as internationally. The report is the first of what we envisaged could be a series of theme-based, Aotea-specific reports that focus attention on the pressures on our taonga, trends in their status and interactions with other aspects of the environment, such as habitat extent and quality.

The 2010 State of Environment for Great Barrier Island Report is the only document that authoritatively describes all aspects of the natural environment of Aotea. It has proved to be a comprehensive reference for decision-makers, researchers, and the community. When published, the Hauraki Gulf Forum noted:

“the significant contribution that this report makes to knowledge about the Great Barrier Island environment and its relevance to the Forum’s requirement to prepare state of the environment reports for the Gulf every three years.”

Birds of Aotea will update information on this very visible aspect of Aotea’s biodiversity, pulling data from disparate sources into one authoritative resource. The report provides a level of detail about our birds that is not currently available through existing national or regional reporting processes.

In this way, we aim to increase community and local and central government awareness of the current state of Aotea’s birds, that allows fuller understanding of interactions within our environment, the positive and negative impacts of human activities over time, and some of the key challenges these species (and their habitats) face now and into the future.

Existing community gathered data sets such as the bird surveys and long-term bird counts (e.g. on dotterels) carried out by local residents and visitors can be effectively used and acknowledged in the report (as well as data sets collected by agencies). We have selected birds for the first update as much of the conservation effort on the island is directed towards Aotea’s diverse avifauna.

Why is this important?

1. Increased understanding of the state of Aotea’s birds will lead to better decision making and increased community engagement in conservation efforts. The publication of the national state of the environment reports in the last few years has shown that good information, presented in an accessible manner does help to inform public opinion and government action. With one of the starkest examples being the recent reporting on the state of New Zealand’s waterways which highlighted an issue that had previously been ‘hidden’ in the scientific literature and facilitated action by many groups and interests to respond to the issue.

2. Little detailed information is readily available on the current state of Aotea’s bird populations and where available, is spread across numerous agencies and organisations. The report will help to bridge the technical data and information in the growing scientific literature on the ecosystems of Aotea that this is not easily accessible to non-specialists. Accessible information is crucial that informs priority-setting for environmental initiatives and funding by relevant agencies and community groups, based on scientifically derived data and community values.

3. We hope that the report will help to increase interest in research on Aotea’s biodiversity by those contributing and reviewing the report. Ongoing research interest and targeted environmental monitoring is essential to identify and prevent/arrest

Birds of aotea, summary and full report

Birds of Aotea (low resolution) - Graphic Summary

Birds of Aotea (low resolution) - Full Report

Thanks to funding originally allocated in October 2018 by the Great Barrier Local Board, volunteer trustees and our Science Advisor John Ogden began work to prepare a ‘State of our Birds’ (2019) report. Timings were severely affected by COVID19 and the passing of editor Emma Waterhouse in 2021.