Identifying freshwater ecosystems of national importance for biodiversity

Cover: A highly natural brown-water stream on Stewart Island, showing intact riparian linkages and a diversity of in-stream habitat. Importance sub-project of The Sustainable Development Programme of Action for Freshwater (or 'Water Programme of Action'). It is a working draft that presents a proposed methodology and a preliminary list of candidate rivers of national importance based on their biodiversity values. This list needs to be further refined, firstly because some data quality and systems problems could not be resolved within reporting time frames; and secondly following the public consultation and peer review during 2005. The report does not define waters of regional or local importance, so should not be interpreted at those scales. The authors should be consulted prior to formal citation of, or reliance on, this report.