We had a great day in Wellington New Zealand beginning at Zealandia, which is a conservation project set up to help rehabilitate the native New Zealand ecosystem. The project began twenty-four years ago and is barely scratching the surface, but they have 600 volunteers who are helping. One of the biggest challenges with this type of project is, of course, raising public awareness. One of the initiatives is called ZIP—Zero Invasive Predators. Given that visitors have been bringing non-native species with them since their first arrival, this is a daunting goal, but one they might just accomplish with focus and funding. The second half of our tour took us to Te Papa Museum. This, too, was focused on the history of New Zealand. It covered everything from how the first visitors arrived to the Maori Wars with Britain. There’s a growing recognition in New Zealand about how unfairly the Maori were treated by the Europeans, much like what the American government did to the American Indians and the Hawaiians. All-in-all, it was a great day. The sun is dropping on the horizon and we’ve set sail for our next destination, which is Napier, New Zealand.
Want to follow along on our journey? Here’s a link where you can find all the entries in our travel journal.
More photos from Wellington New Zealand
Meow Gallery: The gallery is empty.
Linda Chudej says
Thank you for sharing our travels with us through your blog & the pictures. I am learning SO much about New Zealand! I binge watched “800 Words” on Acorn TV & was enamoured with the scenery shown in that series. Also one of my favorite authors (along with you of course!) is Nancy Atherton, author of the Aunt Dimity series. The 15th book of the series is “Aunt Dimity Down Under.” It is the first and so far only book I’ve read that is set in New Zealand. Now I’m going to do a bit of research on the Maori Wars with Britain. It’s so sad the way a country’s indigenous populations were treated by explorers looking to settle in their countries.
Terry says
The Maori story is another sad one, indeed. The Treaty of Waitangi is a great example of how these types of injustices happened.