Sea lions are coming home to the coasts of southern New Zealand, returning to their former territory after more than 300 years in exile. The big question is: Can we make room for them? A curious New ...

You don’t need a PhD to find a new species, unearth a rare fungus or name an asteroid. New Zealanders with no specialist training are contributing to scientific research by monitoring streams, ...

Tussock Tops near Pinnacle, in the West Coast’s Victoria Range. Full moon, the air crisp and still. I’m listening attentively for kiwi, hoping to hear a shrill whistle above the faint murmur of the ...

Bang in the middle of the Maniototo Plain is a place called Wedderburn. Little more than a sweep of highway on a wide-open Central Otago landscape, Wedderburn barely makes it on to most road maps, yet ...

Kairara: one blink and you will miss it. It’s nothing more than a few farms scattered at the base of Tutamoe Mountain, about 20 km north of Dargaville. Not a tourist in sight on the day I passed ...

On a clear day the sea mirrors the rose tint of dawn across the Cavalli Islands. The Rainbow Warrior lies here, her final resting place; a sunken treasure in 22 metres of tranquil water.Bordered by ...

Retreating glaciers and thinning snow and ice are the future of New Zealand’s mountains. Climate change is predicted to warm the country’s atmosphere by 1–4°C by the end of the century, altering the ...

The planting of Russell lupins as sheep feed in the Canterbury high country is triggering a clash between farming and conservation values. In early summer, photographers jostle for space on the ...

At Cooks Beach, waves at high tide overtopped the sea wall protecting the first row of baches. Behind the smooth blue curve of Cooks Beach, there’s a sandy road edged in rough grass, and then rows of ...

Plantations of exotic timber trees, especially pines, are looked on with disdain by many as alien monocultures, an unpleasant accommodation necessary to protect precious indigenous forests from the ...

In the late 19th century, news of a strange antipodean bird with beautiful tail feathers, orange wattles, and a long curved beak spread around the British Empire. To Māori, it was a tapu bird—a sacred ...

The worst experience of the Second World War for New Zealand Red Cross nurse Mona Plane was caring for the survivors of Japanese POW camps. “On one stretcher there seemed to be just a skeleton,” she ...