ABSTRACT
Australia and New Zealand together contain about 4 per cent of the world’s forests. Although they differ biogeographically and in terms of scale, these countries share comparable forest histories. The native forests of both countries originate from the Gondwanan flora, have high levels of biodiversity and endemism and were significantly impacted by indigenous peoples – the Australian Aboriginals and Aotearoa Maori – principally through their hunting of wildlife and use of fire (see for example Flannery, 1994; Whitehead et al, 2003). Maori reduced the area of forest in New Zealand by about one-third prior to the arrival of Europeans and European settlers then cleared a further third (Roche, 1990). In Australia, both Aboriginal and subsequent European use of fire altered the landscape pattern and structure of forests and European settlers converted about one-third of Australia’s forests to other, principally agricultural, land uses (Australian National Forest Inventory, 2003).
