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Lonely Planet s Natural World, published October 2020. Few places match the natural majesty of New Zealand’s South Island with, from top to bottom, beaches, whales, glaciers and waterfalls. New Zealand’s highest mountains are here: Aoraki/Mt Cook in the middle of the island, Mt Aspiring, and Mitre Peak, the triangular talisman marking the mouth of Milford Sound. Keep going, past the adventure towns of Wānaka and Queenstown and you’ll reach Fiordland. This craggy corner of New Zealand is a vast national park and Unesco World Heritage area, covering 4633 square miles (120,000 sq km).
Zosterops meeki. And it looks like we’ve done so just in time, because two of the species – the Tagula Butcherbird and Tagula White-eye – are Near Threatened. Logging, agricultural expansion and commercial gold prospecting are destroying their rainforest habitats. These vital new discoveries came in large part from research lead by one scientist, William Goulding, whose ambition is to improve knowledge of all the endemic bird species of Tagula and the wider Louisiade Archipelago. His research projects employ and train local people and include public education and awareness-raising campaigns among island communities.
3. Junín Grebe swims against tide of extinction
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