What they're doing here is astonishing.  They took 250 hectares of land, less than a mile  from the Parliament building, and set it aside as a nature reserve. 

But they did not stop there.  Five years were spent developing a fence that would bar passage to 14 species of predators.  This fence encircles the entire sanctuary, almost 9 kilometres in length.  The purpose of the fence is to exclude introduced predator species, such as cats, possum, and stoats, that kill birds.  With the exclusion of the predator species, the expectation is that the land will revert back to the condition it was in before humans arrived on the islands.  The expectation is that it will take 500-1000 years for this reversion to complete.  That's what's so impressive about this.  In an epoch where people can barely think more than 5 minutes ahead,  there's a group that is planning 1000 years ahead.  Well, perhaps planning is not the best word.  They are creating the conditions, and then allowing nature to take its course. 
 
With the predators excluded and eradicated, indigenous birds were released into the reserve, including 40 Little Spotted Kiwi, which had been absent from the north island for a number of years. 
 
 
There was something important about these ducks - I think they are extremely rare.
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The North Island Kaka
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