The bidirectional reflectance effects in NOAA AVHRR data have been investigated for forest and pasture sites in New Zealand. The impact of surface anisotropy has been examined for channel 1, channel 2, and the derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) over a 14-day period in the southern hemisphere summer of 1992/1993. Results show a bidirectional effect which persists through atmospheric correction processing and the generation of the NDVI. Comparison is made with previously published results and models, which show consistency for this limited data set.