New Zealand's Amazing Marine Environment

Here are some interesting facts about New Zealand’s marine environment:

1. The sea that New Zealand is responsible for managing stretchers out 370 km from shore and covers 4.2 million square km.
2. New Zealand’s sea area is therefore 15 times larger than our land area!
3. Most New Zealander’s live within 50 km of the sea.
4. We know very little about what lives in the sea that surrounds us but we do know that it is incredibly diverse and quite unique. Our marine environment includes deep sea trenches, undersea mountain ranges, active volcanoes and geothermal vents, corals and sea-mounts, kelp forests, shallow estuaries and deep fiords.
5. There are an estimated 55 - 75,000 species of marine organisms living in our sea - more are being discovered all the time. Presently only around 11,000 species have been accurately described.
6. Because of our isolation much of our marine life is unique to this part of the world. It is estimated that between one third and two thirds of all our native species are located in our seas.
7. There are around 300 estuarine ecosystems around our coastline covering around 100,000 hectares. Most are heavily influenced by human activity, particularly the increased sediment loads that are washed into these receiving environments as a result of our use of land in the estuaries’ catchments.
8. We have two species of endemic (found no where else in the world) marine mammals. The Hectors (and Maui’s sub-species) dolphin and the New Zealand (or Hooker’s) Sea-lion - both are endangered.
9. New Zealand has been christened the "Seabird Capital of the World".  Eighty-four species of seabird nest here and 35 of these species are endemic to this country. Nearly a quarter of the world’s sea-bird species breed in New Zealand.