Te Wahipounamu
Te Wahipounamu is a UNESCO World Heritage area in southwestern New Zealand, encompassing four national parks and landscapes shaped by glaciation.
Fiordland National Park: A large national park in southwestern New Zealand, known for fjords, mountains, forests, and glacially carved valleys. Its fjords and mountains form the southernmost major part of the World Heritage area.
Glacial landform: A feature of Earth’s surface created or reshaped by glaciers and the meltwater they produce. The area’s fjords, valleys, and basins are examples of glacial landforms.
UNESCO World Heritage Site: A place recognized under the World Heritage Convention for outstanding cultural or natural value. Te Wahipounamu’s international status comes from its recognition as a natural World Heritage site.
Department of Conservation: New Zealand’s government agency responsible for conserving natural and historic heritage on public conservation land. The department manages the national parks that make up much of the area.
Māori: The Indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand, with distinct languages, traditions, and communities. Māori histories and relationships to land are integral to understanding the region.
Mount Aspiring National Park: A national park in New Zealand’s Southern Alps, encompassing glaciers, high peaks, and river valleys. Its alpine glaciers illustrate the land-shaping processes represented across the area.
U-shaped valley: A broad valley with a flat floor and steep sides, commonly carved by a glacier. Glaciers carved many of the broad valleys that organize the region’s terrain.
World Heritage Convention: An international treaty adopted in 1972 to identify and protect cultural and natural heritage of outstanding value. The convention provides the framework under which Te Wahipounamu was inscribed.
National park: A protected area established to conserve landscapes, ecosystems, and natural or cultural features. Four national parks provide the area’s main protected-landscape framework.
Māori mythology: A body of Māori stories concerning ancestors, atua, origins, and relationships between people and the natural world. Local traditions connect the landscape’s features with ancestral stories and meaning.