New Zealand's Wilderness Heritage

New Zealand's Wilderness Heritage is destined to be one of the most significant conservation books published in New Zealand for many years. Written by Les Molloy, and photographed by Craig Potton with additional wildlife photography by Rod Morris, this book is a celebration of the extraordinary wilderness legacy that sits at the heart of New Zealand's sense of place. The book also offers a far-sighted vision of how best to conserve our unique flora and fauna.
New Zealand's Wilderness Heritage is structured around a bio-regional approach, with thirteen chapters detailing the protected areas, major flora and fauna values, endangered species and conservation threats and responses for each region of New Zealand. This includes all the significant offshore islands, the sub-Antarctic islands, and the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Seen in totality like this, New Zealand's wilderness seems all the more remarkable, with a diversity of habitat ranging from the teeming marine reserves around some of the offshore islands to the remote rainforests of Southwest New Zealand.

The book is heavily illustrated with the photography of Craig Potton, gathered through extensive travel over twenty years, and is supplemented by wildlife photographs from one of New Zealand's pre-eminent photographers in this genre, Rod Morris.

As is fitting for a book of this significance, the production is of the highest quality, featuring 320 pages with over 300 photographs printed full-colour throughout on high quality art paper, case bound with cloth covers, and presented in a slip case.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr Les Molloy is the author of a number of seminal books on New Zealand natural history, notably The Ancient Islands (with photographer Brian Enting), The Fold of the Land (with photographer Lloyd Homer) and Landforms: The Shaping of New Zealand, with Roger Smith. Originally a soil scientist by profession, Les worked for 10 years at the Department of Conservation's head office where he was the department's principal advisor on natural history interpretation. Now a private consultant, he recently chaired the group of scientific experts who prepared the list of potential natural World Heritage sites for New Zealand and travels widely internationally assessing World Heritage proposals for the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO.

Craig Potton is a noted New Zealand photographer and conservationist. Born in Nelson, New Zealand, he gained degrees in Eastern Religion and English and then, after a brief teaching career, began working full-time for the conservation movement. He remains actively involved in conservation work more than 30 years later and is Deputy President of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society.

Craig has established himself as one of New Zealand's leading photographers of wilderness landscapes. In pursuit of his photography he has travelled, tramped and climbed extensively in New Zealand, its sub-Antarctic islands, the Dry Valleys and Ross Sea areas of Antarctica and the Nepal Himalaya.

Craig is the founder of Craig Potton Publishing.