Managing and preserving the habitats of indigenous plants and wildlife is an important part of ensuring the Bay of Plenty's biodiversity is preserved for future generations.

Biodiversity – it's a word many people are still getting used to but plants and animals have long been acquainted with it.
The term ‘biodiversity' refers to the number and variety of living things found in particular habitats and the relationships between them. It's these habitats that the community sees value in managing and preserving. Environment BOP has responded to this and developed a biodiversity programme to do just that.
Environment BOP manager of land resources (eastern), Simon Stokes, says New Zealand's indigenous biodiversity is in decline and the Bay of Plenty is no different.
'The Bay of Plenty is full of wonderful indigenous plants and wildlife contained in many habitats such as our coastal dunes. Their future relies on us to manage and preserve their habitats and their ecosystems,” says Simon.
'There's great value in investing in biodiversity as it provides us with many protected and managed habitats which add value to our water's quality, soils health by reducing erosion, providing recreational benefits, and some economic opportunities.”
'For example, there is untapped potential on the international market for carbon credit income where bush is regenerating,” says Simon.
'The Bay of Plenty has 43 per cent indigenous vegetation cover remaining. Most of this exists in the forests of Te Urewera National Park, and the Raukumara and Kaimai-Mamaku ranges.
'We're rich in our biodiversity but we can't rest on this fact alone as our threatened habitats need management and protection.
'The habitats that are most threatened are our dunelands, wetlands and geothermal areas on public and private land.
'Our new biodiversity programme focuses on two key pathways. One focuses on known threatened habitat sites and the second empowers the community and landowners to work with us on sites of value to them.
'The programme depends on the foresight of people with sites of ecological value to proactively engage with us to put in place management of their sites. To enable this to happen we have highly skilled staff throughout the region that are available to assist in all areas of biodiversity management.
'We're also very committed to supporting care groups and local agencies that wish to carry out protection work on sites of value to them.
'In each case a biodiversity management plan based on clear objectives is drawn up collaboratively by those involved. Once a plan is approved, Environment BOP can provide financial and technical assistance. In some situations there will be assistance from other agencies with an interest in biodiversity protection,” says Simon.