Must Read: Human impact on NZ birds measured in millions of years

Despite innovative conservation efforts in the country over the last 50 years, over 30% of extant species remain threatened with extinction, and nearly two thirds could be under threat in the future.

According to the authors, if New Zealand’s currently threatened birds go extinct, the macroevolutionary impact could be 10 million years. That means up to 10 million years will be needed to return to today’s biodiversity levels by natural evolutionary processes. It would take 4 million years to recover the diversity lost in the less than 250 years since Europeans arrived.

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