New Zealand's New Population is Now 695 Billion

New Zealanders woke up to a new population overnight.

Auckland, New Zealand

One day it was 5 million, the next day it was 695 billion. It wasn't a computer glitch. The new figure is actually part of a government awareness campaign to highlight the biodiversity crisis and get people thinking differently about nature. In an open letter to the world and on digital billboards, which went live overnight in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, the Department of Conservation (DOC) revealed it had “counted” all of nature and the total is 695 billion.

“We want to spark curiosity and conversations around all the amazing plants, birds, and marine life we have in this country and what we stand to lose if we don’t look after it,” said Penny Nelson, director general of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. "The 695 billion number came from playing with some data sets and having a go at estimating the population of all visible living things, like birds, fish, plants, and trees. We obviously couldn’t count all the slugs and bugs," she laughs.

The “playful, back-of-the-envelope” figures were released in response to research showing that 89 percent of New Zealanders believe that nature is in ‘good shape’, which Nelson said is “disconnected from the reality of the situation”.

While the campaign has been broadly welcomed by ecologists, the New Zealand government itself has been accused of being disconnected from reality when it comes to biodiversity, with critics claiming it is lagging behind on ocean protection.