Postcards from Ngāruawāhia

Drive through Ngāruawāhia, and all you’ll see is a dilapidated main strip—the butcher, the dairy, the pharmacy, the op-shop—that doesn’t spread further than two half-boarded-up blocks. The town’s name, however, stems from celebration, abundance and romance.

For one week in May, 21 photographers documented this small town at the confluence of history. This is what they found...

Swamp kauri trafficking back in headlines

On Jacinda Ardern's recent visit to the USA, she gave a carved bowl to President Biden—a bowl made of ancient swamp kauri, and obtained from a man who in 2019 was found "likely" to have trafficked in this taonga. Now, the Prime Minister is under fire for failing to consult on the gift with mana whenua.

In issue #142, we investigated the illegal export of swamp kauri by people who falsely classified it as "artwork". Swamp kauri is one of the world’s most valuable and exquisite timbers, and the rush to dig it up it has seen wetlands destroyed across Northland. Mana whenua want to keep it in the country, and so do climate scientists: swamp kauri, classified as a sub-fossil, also contains a valuable record of the past. Keep reading...

Behind the scenes at Photo Aotearoa

Twenty years ago, the New Zealand Herald employed 27 photojournalists in Auckland and three in the regions. Today there are just four nationwide. It’s the same story in the magazine industry—New Zealand Geographic once had three staff photographers: today, freelancers shoot the magazine’s stories.

Avenues for emerging photographers to learn the craft are limited, and the depth and quality of photojournalism that New Zealanders see have withered.

And so, with funding from NZ On Air’s Public Interest Journalism Fund, New Zealand Geographic staged a free five-day workshop dedicated to the craft of photojournalism. Keep reading...

Subscribe and support local journalism

While advertising and retail income goes up and down, it is subscriptions from readers like you that power long-term journalism projects from around New Zealand and help us keep the lights on.

It's not as much as you think—$8.50 every two months for digital, $12 for print or $16.50 for both... a gold coin a week. Check out the options.

The Great South Road

It is half past six in the morning and I am standing on the corner of Great South Road and Broadway. The traffic pulsing through the lights into Newmarket and the city beyond feeds mostly from Manukau Road. Great South Road, which crests a rise and drops out of sight towards Greenlane, is still quiet at this hour. An unexceptional crossroads, with a Mercedes-Benz dealership on one corner and an Indian tandoori restaurant on another, this spot marks the start of what was in the mid-19th century the great route south from the colonial capital.

In 1843, when work on the road began, Auckland was little more than a huddle of raupō whare, tents and rough clapboard buildings, its streets rutted, and the enclosing countryside for the most part a fern-covered wasteland. Keep reading...

Home truths

Could the types of materials we use in our home have an impact on the billions of microorganisms that exist there? A first-of-its-kind study aims to find out. Keep reading...