Salt, sand and snapper
There's no machine better than a trusty Landy on an 88-kilometre-long road made entirely of sand. Just ask the legends of the Snapper Classic.
There's no machine better than a trusty Landy on an 88-kilometre-long road made entirely of sand. Just ask the legends of the Snapper Classic.
Arno Gasteiger specialises in exploring contemporary issues and presenting them in a thoughtful body of work. He has been a contributor to NZ Geographic since issue 1 and produced more than 90 major assignments with the magazine.
The idea of minimal living, an international fad, has fallen on fertile soil in New Zealand, thanks to our national housing crisis and shifting ideas about the way we want to live. For some people, a tiny house is the only home they will ever afford to own. Others are stepping off the treadmill of modern life to ask: How much space does a person really need?
Most introduced mammals have had a devastating effect on native wildlife, but one species is bucking the trend. About 80 conservation dogs are deployed around the country, helping to protect vulnerable native species by leaping into action at a single command: Seek!
Kauri create shelter and nourishment for other species to grow, but now, a disease without a cure is killing these forest giants one by one. In the past five years, the infection rate of kauri has more than doubled in the only forest where it's monitored—the Waitakere Ranges. At least one in five trees there are doomed. Can we save the species?
Swimmable rivers or more hooves on pastures—is there a way of improving water quality without paralysing the primary sector? Or has agriculture reached an environmental tipping point?
Five millimetres of rain in a day is not uncommon in Auckland, but it is enough to cause parts of the city’s wastewater network to overflow, spilling raw sewage into the sea and making beaches unsafe for swimming. This summer, permanent warning signs were posted at 10 locations where water quality is so bad that Auckland Council no longer monitors it. Why are Auckland’s beaches so frequently unswimmable? Is the solution better plumbing—or more enlightened thinking?
Submerged for aeons in the peat bogs of New Zealand’s north, swamp kauri is one of the world’s most valuable and exquisite timbers, and an unparalleled resource for global climate science. But as exports boomed and wetlands were ruined in the rush for the logs, the swamps have become an ideological battleground. What is the future of this ancient taonga?
One of the rarest ecologies in the world is hiding in plain sight, in the centre of the most central suburb of the largest city in New Zealand. Of more than 5000 hectares of rock forest that once shrouded the lava boulderfields of the Auckland isthmus, only tiny remnants survive, totalling just 29 hectares. Welcome to the secret world of the city’s last rock forest.
The forest canopy is home to all kinds of flora and fauna, some of which have only just been discovered. Canopy species are integral to soil health and climate regulation, but we don’t know exactly how, or why—and we’re in danger of losing them before we find out what’s at stake.
With predicted increases in sea level of a metre or more by the end of this century, present-day problems of coastal erosion, flooding and salt-water intrusion into groundwater are going to get much worse. As world leaders gather in Paris to seek a political solution to climate change, it’s timely to ask how we in New Zealand are responding to the challenge of rising seas.
Old traditions, new beginnings in Northland's historic harbour.
A humble New Zealand shellfish with an out-sized foot and a reputation as an aphrodisiac powers a local economy, a $50-million-dollar export industry and an active black market. Recently, a trade in methamphetamine has sprung up in support of poaching efforts. Who will win the battle for control of paua?
New Zealand’s largest city sits atop an active volcanic field that has erupted at least 53 times in the past 250,000 years. The catastrophic blasts felled forests and set the Auckland isthmus alight. The fire-fountaining cones and lava flows rode roughshod over the land. Scientists are not wondering if it will happen again, but what it will cost Auckland in lives and infrastructure when it does.
A photographer’s quest to find memory and meaning on the Forgotten World Highway.
Native forest once covered most of Aotearoa in a great green swathe, heaving with biodiversity. Two-thirds fell to fire, axe and bulldozer during a botanical Blitzkrieg the like of which the world has never seen. Today’s forest remnants are confined largely to areas of conservation land, but legislation can’t protect against pathogens, pests and invasive weeds that do not respect park boundaries. What does the future hold for our forests?
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, New Zealand society is changing before our eyes. Despite being the last land mass to be inhabited by humans, we are now one of the most ethnically diverse. And despite priding ourselves on our egalitarian society, the gap between rich and poor is growing faster in Aotearoa than in almost any other country in the OECD. Our cities are thriving, the regions are declining, and almost as nothing is as it seems.
We were taught that in 1840 Maori willingly exchanged their sovereignty for the benefits of becoming British subjects. What if we were taught wrong?
Water, our most precious natural asset, offers amenity, a habitat for aquatic species and a focus for recreation. But it also turns the turbines of industry and powers New Zealand’s agricultural economy. Economic development and environmental integrity are at odds in a struggle for control over this great resource. Are we mortgaging our future for a little more economic growth?
New Zealand storm petrels were presumed extinct, then rediscovered in 2003, more than a century after the last sighting. But their breeding site—the focus of conservation efforts for any seabird—remained a mystery. Researchers went out to prove the old adage that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Would a radio-tagged storm petrel lead them to the breeding site of New Zealand’s most elusive seabird?
A sea of daisies churns beneath Isla, Naomi and Mira sailing their ship at Mt Albert Playcentre. Every weekday, the doors of nearly 500 Playcentres open for similar adventures. For 70 years this volunteer-based movement has pushed the boundaries of learning in New Zealand, with philosophies of child-led play and a belief that parents are the child’s first and best educators.
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