Josh James reinvents adventure and manhood on the West Coast, with the world watching.
Aeroplanes carry more unwanted hitchhikers than boats.
A new species of Samoan beetle has been discovered, long after it became extinct.
A pā in the Waikato has been dated back to 1768 AD—younger than previously thought—using a precise form of radiocarbon dating never before applied to pā. About 7000 pā have been identified across New Zealand. Some are the area of a modern-day house, others span hectares, and many are in the lush areas of the northern half of the North Island now used for farming. Many pā in the Waikato were swamp pā, which took advantage of navigable waterways and rich natural resources. In the case of the 6000-square-metre Otāhau Pā, built on a strip of land between the Komakorau and Mangamotu streams near the Waikato River, the boggy soil and stream has preserved the palisade posts, 100 of which are still visible above water. Some of the posts were the trunks of mīro, a winner in terms of carbon dating because of its sharp, clear growth rings that can be cut out and measured for radiocarbon. Radiocarbon, along with regular carbon, is incorporated from the atmosphere into living creatures and plants. When the creatures and plants die, the radiocarbon will slowly decay to nitrogen—so the ratio of remaining radiocarbon to regular carbon tells researchers how old the artefact is. But regular radiocarbon dating often isn’t precise enough because there have been natural fluctuations of radiocarbon in the atmosphere throughout history. In a technique called ‘radiocarbon wiggle-matching’, the radiocarbon amounts in individual tree rings of the pā palisade post are compared with the radiocarbon amounts in tree rings of a kauri of known calendar age, and so a more precise date is reached. With this most recent study, by Alan Hogg and his team from the University of Waikato, wiggle-matching could date the palisade post construction to within four years. The authors write in the Journal of Archeological Science Reports that the pā is much younger than was expected by kaumātua from Taupiri Marae, 1.5 kilometres from Otāhau Pā. There is not much oral history on the pā from that time period, and as the area was in a state of warfare, they suggest that it may have been settled by another hapū.
How many moa were there before the human settlement of Aotearoa? “We don’t know,” came the emphatic answer from the experts consulted for this issue. Estimates ranged from thousands of moa, to millions—though the higher end of the range was dismissed as “bollocks” in the carefully chosen words of one scientist. Why do whales strand? “Well… it’s complicated. There’s a range of contributing factors.” Simple questions can have complicated answers, and the popular image of science as a realm of orderly ideas and binary responses usually underestimates the complexity and tangled nature of problems that modern researchers are attempting to solve. Sometimes, there are thousands of variables, not the single cause-and-effect relationship of Newtonian physics. Which is what makes the Earth System Model—described by Naomi Arnold in this issue—such an audacious idea. It’s founded on the principle that every natural system and relationship can be described mathematically, and if you have rules that describe all of them—and a super-computer at your disposal—you can construct the perfect model of the planet, and demonstrate order within the apparent chaos. Not every process of this planet is fully understood, but the model will also serve to highlight those gaps in our understanding—the Southern Ocean being the largest missing piece in our region—and gradually resolve and refine it. Ultimately, this mathematical world will become the researchers’ play-thing. Like setting up a model train set, they will be able to re-route the tracks, build new tracks, and determine the route of the model train in order to understand how the real train might behave given different scenarios. Making sense of a complex world is the work of an Earth System Model, and for 55 issues editing New Zealand Geographic, asking simple questions and presenting the complicated answers in a compelling way has been my job too. For more than half of that period I have also been the magazine’s publisher, and now the moment has come to spend more time setting the direction of the title, and doubling-down in our efforts in the digital realm. I will still be involved with the print edition as a photo editor, but from next issue the editor’s torch will be passed to Rebekah White, currently deputy editor, award-winning former editor of Pro Photographer and frequent feature writer for this magazine—including in this edition. She is only the fourth in New Zealand Geographic’s relay of editors, and I know that she will bring the freshness of a new runner—a vibrant new voice and a new approach as the magazine approaches its third decade. Occupying this chair is a role I have cherished. Working with contributors to imagine a story, being the first person to read a freshly minted text, or receiving the first samples of a photographer’s work—sometimes sent direct from the field—has been a sublime privilege. Witnessing the magic moment when the text first touches the pictures on the designer’s screen, and watching the visual and textual narratives become entangled has probably been my greatest reward. And I trust this position will afford Rebekah as much satisfaction as it has me; even as she works to deliver insights and delights to you, in print and online. As for me, my mission remains the same—to give readers experiences that allow them to see New Zealand in a new way; to shed old mind-sets and build new notions of what this country is and could be. For the large and growing number of readers of this title, the future is full of possibility.
No one knew that Kaikōura was home to the world’s only alpine-dwelling seabird until an amateur ornithologist following a rumour discovered its burrows high in the mountains. As the bizarre attributes and tenuous existence of the Hutton’s shearwater slowly came to light, Kaikōura took up the mantle of protecting its local bird—just in time to witness the destruction of its breeding grounds in the November 2016 earthquake.
A three-year recording of whales and ice.
Natural History New Zealand producer and cameraman Max Quinn on decades of documentaries.
The vaquita and the Māui’s dolphin, and their twin fates.
A small group of Kiwi scientists is attempting to construct the ultimate crystal ball—a mathematical model of the Earth’s natural systems so intricate that it can predict the behaviour of our atmosphere, land and seas, human industry and biological production, far into the future. Behold, the New Zealand Earth System Model—the most nuanced and complex description of our region’s functions ever devised.
Can a river speak, and, if so, are we listening?
Scientists believed they had found an ancient civilisation, but it was more like plastic forks.
Carmelite nuns live in seclusion, rarely venturing from their cloister. Instead, they devote themselves to prayer and contemplation. Eighty years after it was established, a glimpse inside an Auckland monastery reveals simplicity and contentment born of another time.
So in January we tried the ‘explosive’ kind.
Across the world, ecosystems have been transformed by the mass extinctions that followed the arrival of humans. In New Zealand, the moa, the world’s largest eagle, sea lions, elephant seals and whales were wiped from the register at lightning speed. How did our megafauna become reduced to lawn ornaments?
“Thousands thrilled and amazed”.
Don Rowe goes bush with The Kiwi Bushman
Your body is controlled by chemicals, telling you when to wake, when to eat, even controlling your physical strength.
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