Idea: No humans in New Zealand

Not immediately, but after a few decades Europe would be irreparably and irrevocably changed. We don't yet fully understand the connectivity of the Earth and its functions. The global ecosystem is connected in ways that we can scarcely imagine. The loss of a single bacteria fifty years ago could make the United States collapse in the place of the Soviet Union and see the rise of communism around the entire world.

We don't actually know this, since we can't run experiments on the earth's history and see how wiping out a bacteria changes things. I happen to think there's some truth to it, but lets recognize that its not a scientific fact and not make it into a dogma either.
 
It is possible that New Zealand could've avoided human habitation. After all it was (and still is) a long way from anywhere. Explorers could've decided not to settle New Zealand because it was either too remote, too cold or too wild for their liking and decided to return home.

They could've missed New Zealand altogether as the navigators didn't always get it right.

Like others have said, Polynesians probably had been exploring in this area for a while, and sooner or later they would get here. And sooner or later they would decide to settle here, it is difficult to believe they could ignore such a large landmass considering the general lack of large landmasses in the Pacific.

Malice said:
It is also worth mentioning that Europeans only discovered New Zealand because they were looking for a mythical Great Southern Land, which was the stuff of legends in Europe and Asia. Without those legends the discovery of New Zealand would've been the result of an error. In the 1840s Europeans were depending on Maori to survive because they couldn't handle New Zealand's harsh environment. If the Maori hadn't been here it's almost certain their settlements would've been abandoned as the settlers would not have survived the conditions.

The first part is partly true, but to avoid that you need a major departure from European thinking at the time, one which would have major consequences not just for New Zealand. That would require a pretty early POD I would think. Even so, you would think that getting across such a large landmass would happen eventually.

As for the second part, the early settler dependence on Maori was due to the simple fact that they were heavily outnumbered by Maori, and consequently depended on them to provide them with land (and attendant resources) and protection to succeed. You seem to have an idea that New Zealand is some desolate place with extremely harsh conditions, but that's not really the case.
 
I think there is a general point here, that it is hard to settle a place for the first time quickly. There are usually very few people to do the hard work and it will take time to clear land, break in soil, build housing etc. The local flora and fauna may or may not support the population during this process.

My ancestors spent decades carving out farms in the lower South Island (coastal hill lands / forested areas are harder), which they were only able to do because they could get work and support from local towns or villages to tide them over until the farm was economic. Many people had to give up
 
I think there is a general point here, that it is hard to settle a place for the first time quickly.

That´s true. It´d be a painstakingly slow process. And the later it happens the more likely the fauna is to survive, since humans will be closer to understand ecological consequences of their actions.

Europe may or may not be recognizable due to butterflies. (Although it might also be nearly identical to OTL which is easier to imagine for sake of this thought experiment). Assuming the british try settling in the 1840s they might reach the point of million inhabitants much later. (The wiki says 1 million settlers by 1911), could be really late.
 
if NZ didn't have any humans on it at all when the settlers arrived, I'd think settling it would be harder... the climate isn't all that bad, but the forest growth would be tangled and hard to clear (unlike N. America, where the natives kept it burnt down regularly). Still, it would be done, just slower. Maybe some of the giant birds would survive in isolated parks, but a lot of them are going to die in the first wave of settlement as the settlers need something to eat while waiting to clear/plant/grow those vital first crops. Early settlement of NZ might be similar to that of NA with early settlers dying in droves due to starvation...
 
Do we have a reason to be sure it will be settled? I suspect people would just come by to hunt expensive animals and then leave to sell them.
 
Do we have a reason to be sure it will be settled? I suspect people would just come by to hunt expensive animals and then leave to sell them.

the only thing to hunt is moas. And yes, it'll be settled... it's a lot of prime temperate land that suits European settlers well so far as climate is concerned. With no natives to dispossess, that just makes it more attractive...
 
Like others have said, Polynesians probably had been exploring in this area for a while, and sooner or later they would get here. And sooner or later they would decide to settle here, it is difficult to believe they could ignore such a large landmass considering the general lack of large landmasses in the Pacific.

New Zealand is actually very isolated, not just because of distance from other landmasses but by mostly adverse currents too. It was in fact settled after Easter Island if I'm not wrong.
 
I respect the interconnectedness of the world, but I think (a) butterflies can be taken too far in the physical sense. It's certainly possible that some tiny change in the Pacific would make Europe unrecognizable three or four hundred years later, but it's also possible that changes would average out and not much would change. Maybe (probably) Tasman wouldn't be genetically exactly the same person, but if someone with the same function came at approximately the same time, does it matter much?

(b) In this case it seems to me that butterflies are getting used as a club to cut off discussion of an interesting question. AH isn't reality. At best it's an exercise in historical reasoning--a pale shadow of the complexities of real history. Nothing on this board, not even the best scenarios, approach reality. They all takes shortcuts and are based on incomplete information. They have to. How big of a shortcut is it acceptable to take? That's a judgement call. I'll accept a bigger suspension of disbelief to get to an interesting scenario than I would for yet another Eastern front excursion.
 
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