For one week in May, 21 photographers documented a small town at the confluence of history. What they found was beautiful.
There’s a new holiday on the calendar: Matariki, the Māori new year. It’s the first indigenous celebration to be formally recognised in any colonised country. It brings with it a focus on the resurgence of the maramataka, the Māori environmental calendar. And it might just be the best thing that’s happened to New Zealand’s environmental conscience in years.
It’s the worst part of an officer cadet’s training, and it will haunt them for the rest of their Army career.
Where do young sea creatures spend their first weeks? What’s at the root of oceanic food chains? Kelp forests are to Aotearoa what coral reefs are to other marine ecosystems. Or they used to be.
New Zealand’s geography makes it an appealing place for agriculture. It also makes this country a good place for launching rockets.
Aotearoa couldn’t be further from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but social media and global news make the war all too close for the many New Zealanders who have roots in the region.
A symphony is taking place beneath the waves, as many different animals call to each other, scare off predators, stun their prey, or munch on algae. What happens when humans drown them out?
Stewardship land has gone from obscurity to primetime in 2022. All eyes are on a new national panel of experts, a new mana whenua panel of iwi representatives and the Minister of Conservation as they decide the fate of nine per cent of Aotearoa’s total land area—with the first million hectares to be dealt with in eight months.
Sea-level rise doesn’t affect coasts equally—one bay may be drowned while the beach next door remains the same as ever. Predicting sea-level rise needs to take into account tectonic movement of the land, prevailing winds, coastal erosion and Arctic meltwater. Now, the first-ever detailed map of New Zealand’s coastlines shows what may happen.
Coal warms our hospitals and schools, ripens our tomatoes, makes roses bloom, turns ironsand into steel, dries milk powder for export, and generates electricity when hydro lakes are low and gas production sputters. Coal also releases close to double its weight in carbon dioxide emissions—and, in 2021, New Zealand imported record volumes of it. If we’re to meet our net zero emissions target in time, we’re going to need a game changer.
When Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai erupted in Tonga on January 15, sending a shockwave around the globe, it rewrote scientists’ understanding of volcanology and tsunamis.
Since 1955, New Zealand has prioritised cars in the design of our cities and streets. But what does that mean for anyone who isn’t behind the wheel?
In February, three mining companies were granted permission to explore the Cook Islands’ submarine wealth: lumps packed with rare metals on the sea floor. What has the tiny Pacific nation got to lose?
How hard could it be to find a manta ray? They’re six metres wide, after all.
With its bright-red flowers shaped like a parrot’s beak, ngutukākā—also called kākābeak—is distinctive and delicious. Only 108 plants remain in the wild in Aotearoa, but many more grow in the United Kingdom due to the efforts of an English collector and gardener in the 1830s. Now, the descendants of these plants are returning home.
Something is nibbling at the heart of our ecosystems. As possums, rats and stoats disappear thanks to Predator Free 2050 operations, mouse numbers are expected to climb. Are we prepared? And since mice eat our wētā, beetles, geckos and skinks—rather than our charismatic birds—do we care enough to do anything about it?
Land is owned, but the sea is shared. And we haven’t been sharing very well.
The Nelson area is one of New Zealand’s richest for minerals. Here, obsessives comb rivers for unusual and precious rocks. Yet despite these people’s shared passion, friction abounds within the community, raising questions: who owns the precious stones that tumble down rivers in the public estate? Can anyone take them? And, if so, can they sell them? Should they?
Taking a dip in a freezing lake or an ice bath is a growing trend, with practitioners claiming a variety of health benefits. So, what happens to your body—and your mind—when you’re immersed in cold water?
Off the east coast of the North Island, one tectonic plate slipping could lead to the same kind of quake that caused devastating tsunami in Japan in 2011 and Southeast Asia in 2004. Thanks to a suite of seafloor instruments and new underwater observatories, scientists are discovering more about this plate boundary and how it behaves.
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