Department of Conservation Land Map 2003

The Department of Conservation (DoC) land register is a GIS database of conservation land, covering the New Zealand mainland and offshore islands. Conservation land includes Crown land held under the Conservation Act, Reserves Act, National Parks Act, Wildlife Act, Marine Reserves Act, and the Marine Mammals Protection Act.

It excludes seabed or foreshore not set aside for a particular purpose. The map also includes private or Maori land that has legal protection through a conservation covenant or Nga Whenua Rahui kawenata, a lease to the Minister of Conservation, agreement under s76 Reserves Act, easement held by the Minister of Conservation, sanctuary refuge or management area under the Wildlife Act.

In addition, the map includes other conservancy land for which DOC has information (mostly local authority reserves). The database contains approximately 18,000 polygons referred to as “conservation units”. Polygon areas are recorded in hectares to 4 decimal places, but are not very accurate (Froude, 1999). (Motu restricted dataset 6.)

Data Source: Department of Conservation.