NEW ZEALAND

« Thème 1 NEW ZEALAND The name « New Zealand » com from « Zeland » in dutch, a province of the Netherlands.

New Zealand is called « Aoteora » in the Maori language, « Lans of the Long White Cloud ». LOCATION New Zealand consists of two main islands , the North Island and South Island, and many smaller ones.

The South Island is the larger of the two main islands.

The country is situated east of Australia across the Tasman sea, and south of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. FAUNA & FLORA The isolation of New Zealand led to the development of exceptional flora.

Before the arrival of Europeans , the vegetation in New Zealand was composed of dense forests of trees , especially on the North Island.

Today, this forest exists only in uninhabited areas.

Because of the lack of predators,some birds like the kiwi, kakapo and takahé did not develop any ability to fly. The arrival of humans, associated with changes to natural environment, and the indroduction of rats, and other mammals caused the extinction of many bird species, including large birds like the Moa and Haast's eagle.

HISTORY The history of this country is one of the shortest in the world because it is one of the last territories colonized by humans.

Indeed, the Maori arrived between 800 and 1150 on the islands they called Aotearoa , "Land of the long white cloud ".

New Zealand was first sighted by a European, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642 .

In 1840 the Bistish ans maori signed the waitangi treaty making New Zealand a colony of the British Empire. In 1987, the Waitangi Tribunal cancelled the Waitangi Treaty and made the Te Reo maori ( the maori language ) an official New Zealand language along with English.

Les langues sont relativement nombreuses en Nouvelle-Zélande.

L'anglais, le maori et la langue des signes néo-zélandaise sont les langues officielles,. »