Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, formerly known as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary,[1] is a protected natural area in Wellington, New Zealand, the first urban completely fenced ecosanctuary,[2] where the biodiversity of 225 ha (just under a square mile) of forest is being restored.

The sanctuary was previously part of the water catchment area for Wellington, between Wrights Hill (bordering Karori) and the Brooklyn wind turbine on Polhill.

The sanctuary, surrounded by a pest-exclusion fence, is a good example of an ecological island, which allows the original natural ecosystems to recover by minimising the impact of introduced flora and fauna.

The sanctuary has become a significant tourist attraction in Wellington and is responsible for the greatly increased number of sightings of species such as tūī and kākā in city's suburbs.

Examples include the 7.7-hectare (19-acre) lowland podocarp forest remnant of Riccarton bush/Putaringamotu, the 98-hectare (240-acre) Bushy Park, and the 3,500-hectare (8,600-acre) Maungatautari Restoration Project enclosing an entire mountain.

[8] From this point, as the whole valley was a protected water catchment area for Wellington city, the slopes were re-vegetated with introduced trees and the native forest also began regenerating.

The "Natural Wellington" project identified the reservoir catchment as having special significance because it is a large self-contained habitat suitable for a wide variety of native plants and animals.

Members of the original flora that are missing from the site, or rare, include large podocarp species such as rimu, matai, miro, kahikatea, and tōtara, are being re-established.