Natural History of Banks Peninsula

Banks Peninsula, treasured by Christchurch city dwellers, peninsula residents and visitors from afar, is a unique volcanic landform jutting eastwards into the Pacific from the otherwise unsurprising Canterbury Plains. Once forested from side to side, and from sea to summits, the land was stripped of nearly all its trees, and much of its original wildlife, by two great waves of colonisation, Polynesian and European. Much indigenous biodiversity remains, however, and native forest cover is incr…