New Zealand’s four million km2 marine environment is diverse, with a range of coastal habitats and offshore seabed environments. There are also many marine species unique to New Zealand. Marine protected areas conserve or manage some of these unique habitats and species, while a range of other tools also provide marine protection. We report on the area covered by these tools as an indirect measure to understand the state of the marine environment. Marine reserves lie within our territorial sea (12 nautical mile limit) and offer the highest level of marine protection in New Zealand waters. No marine habitat or life form, such as seaweed or fish, may be removed from, or disturbed in, these places.Sourced from MfE from a collection of layers for the "Our Marine Environment 2016" report (see https://data.mfe.govt.nz/layers/tag/our-marine-environment-2016/). Mercator 41 Projection - EPSG:3994

The Land Use Map is composed of New Zealand-wide land use classifications (12) nominally at 1 January 1990, 1 January 2008, 31 December 2012 and 31 December 2016 (known as "1990", "2008", "2012" and "2016"). These date boundaries were dictated by the First and Second Commitment Periods of the Kyoto Protocol. The layer can therefore be used to create either a 1990, 2008, 2012 or 2016 land use map depending on what field is symbolised.

New Zealand’s four million km2 marine environment is diverse, with a range of coastal habitats and offshore seabed environments. There are also many marine species unique to New Zealand. Marine protected areas (MPAs) conserve or manage some of these unique habitats and species, while a range of other tools also provide marine protection. We report on the area covered by these tools as an indirect measure to understand the state of the marine environment. Type 2 MPAs have lower levels of protection than marine reserves. For example, they may allow fishing but restrict seabed trawling.

The location and extent of Type 2 marine protected areas in the territorial sea.

The Chatham Islands Land Use Map is composed of 12 land use classifications nominally at 1 January 1990, 1 January 2008, 31 December 2012 and 31 December 2016 (known as "1990", "2008", "2012" and "2016") and was created using broadly the same methodology as was used for mainland LUCAS NZ LUM 2016. These date boundaries were dictated by the First and Second Commitment Periods of the Kyoto Protocol. The layer can therefore be used to create either a 1990, 2008, 2012 or 2016 land use map depending on what field is symbolised.

New Zealand’s four million km2 marine environment is diverse, with a range of coastal habitats and offshore seabed environments. There are also many marine species unique to New Zealand. Marine protected areas conserve or manage some of these unique habitats and species, while a range of other tools also provide marine protection. We report on the area covered by these tools as an indirect measure to understand the state of the marine environment. Seamount (underwater mountain area) closures are one of the marine protection tools used. They are designated areas in the exclusive economic zone, which extends to the 200 nautical mile limit. Seamount closures protect underwater mountain areas through the prohibition of all trawling activity. There are some areas where seamount closures overlap with benthic protection areas. In these cases the seamount closure restrictions apply.Sourced from MfE from a collection of layers for the "Our Marine Environment 2016" report (see https://data.mfe.govt.nz/layers/tag/our-marine-environment-2016/). Mercator 41 Projection - EPSG:3994

New Zealand’s four million km2 marine environment is diverse, with a range of coastal habitats and offshore seabed environments. There are also many marine species unique to New Zealand. Marine protected areas conserve or manage some of these unique habitats and species, while a range of other tools also provide marine protection. We report on the area covered by these tools as an indirect measure to understand the state of the marine environment. Benthic protection areas (protected seabed areas) are one of the marine protection tools used. They are designated areas in the exclusive economic zone, which extends from the 12 nautical mile seaward limit of the territorial sea to the 200 nautical mile limit. Bethnic protection areas protect seabed habitats through the prohibition of bottom trawling and dredging. There are some areas where seamount closures overlap with benthic protection areas. In these cases the seamount closure restrictions apply. Note that the thumbnail preview of this spatial data does not reflect the data underlying it. Please see the methodology for a more reflective preview.Sourced from MfE from a collection of layers for the "Our Marine Environment 2016" report (see https://data.mfe.govt.nz/layers/tag/our-marine-environment-2016/)

New Zealand’s four million km2 marine environment is diverse, with a range of coastal habitats and offshore seabed environments. There are also many marine species unique to New Zealand. Marine protected areas conserve or manage some of these unique habitats and species, while a range of other tools also provide marine protection. We report on the area covered by these tools as an indirect measure to understand the state of the marine environment. Marine mammal sanctuaries are one of the marine protection tools used. They are designed to protect New Zealand’s unique range of marine mammals by reducing harmful human impacts, particularly in vulnerable areas such as migratory routes and breeding grounds. Each marine mammal sanctuary has a specific set of restrictions based on the species that occupy, or pass through that particular area.

The location and extent of Marine reserves (type 1 marine protected areas) in the territorial sea.

The New Zealand Land Cover Database (LCDB) is a multi-temporal, thematic classification of New Zealand's land cover. It identifies 33 mainland land cover classes (35 classes once the offshore Chatham Islands are included). The classification was revised between versions 1, 2, and 3 but has been consistent thereafter, and always with backward compatibility maintained. Land cover features are described by a polygon boundary, a land cover code, and a land cover name at each nominal time step; summer 1996/97, summer 2001/02, summer 2008/09, summer 2012/13, and summer 2018/19. The data set is designed to complement in theme, scale and accuracy, New Zealand’s 1:50,000 topographic database (https://www.linz.govt.nz/land/maps/topographic-maps/topo50-maps). LCDB is suitable for use in national and regional environment monitoring, forest and shrubland inventory, biodiversity assessment, trend analysis and infrastructure planning. The classification used in LCDBv5.0 is presented in the document 'LCDBClassesAtVersion5.pdf' and a table correlating LCDB classes over all versions is presented in the document 'LCDBClassCorrelations.pdf'. Both of these are among the accessory documents to this dataset in the LRIS portal (https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/). LCDB version 5.0 was released in January 2020 and includes corrections to all time steps1997/97, 2001/02, 2008/09, 2012/13 and 2018/19 for both the New Zealand mainland and Chatham Islands. A description of work undertaken for this release (including that of all earlier releases) is presented in the Lineage section. Of particular note at version 5.0 is the addition to LCDB, of attributes designed to readily identify and monitor wetlands over time and a similar capability to manage significant coastal changes. “EditAuthority” and "EditDate" are attributes, maintained since version 3.0 to indicate authorship and nominal date of polygon mapping, edit or change. Errors in the data due to misclassification (rather than land cover change) or poor delineation can be reported to Landcare Research for inclusion in the next release using the online feedback facility in https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/.