In the cold, steep world of the fiords, tannins block out sunlight to the world below. The fiords are cold and inhospitable in winter, when they receive little light and freeze over at their extremes. In this unforgiving world there are no second chances
Perched way out in the Pacific, Rangatira Island is pockmarked with thousands, maybe millions, of seabird burrows. Its forest remnants and rocky platforms also shelter some unique and critically endangered birds. But even endangered birds can make a tasty snack and, on a crowded island, there might not be enough room for everyone to rear their chicks.
A drowned volcano, jutting out into the ocean, shelters one of the world’s tiniest marine dolphins. Fresh meltwater from Southern Alps rushes down braided rivers, washes food into the sea and percolates into wetlands that provide a home for the long lived and mysterious eels.
In the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand’s most active volcano fills the sky with plumes of white cloud. Sterile and inhospitable, the forces that built White Island influence the seas around it.
Alone in the Pacific, halfway to Tonga, sit the Kermadec Islands. This remote archipelago is New Zealand’s northernmost frontier and our toehold on the tropics. Everything that lives on and around these young islands has travelled far to be here and a unique mix of creatures thrive in its warm waters. As a marine community the Kermadec is unrivalled in New Zealand waters.
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