Much of New Zealand’s coastal property has an expiry date, with its value set to be wiped off the ledger in as little as nine years’ time, well before sea levels rise and coastlines are redrawn. What ...

What would the beach be without red-billed gulls? We may be about to find out. Two huge colonies have already gone under and the next biggest, in Kaikōura, is failing fast. In December 2023, ...

A nondescript field in Cromwell is the world’s first—and only—nature reserve dedicated to the protection of an invertebrate. It doesn’t look like your average nature reserve. A balding paddock ...

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. South ...

People and livestock gobble so much fish that the seas soon won’t keep up. Is the answer to grow fish on land? After decades of research, scientists are cracking the secrets to commercially ...

In a windy land, the most notorious gale is the Canterbury nor’wester. Born in the heart of the mountains, it accelerates down the great valleys east of the Main Divide and roars out across the plains ...

The invasive seaweed Caulerpa brachypus was discovered in New Zealand just over a year ago, and it promises to ruin everything. On Aotea/Great Barrier Island, people are sacrificing their way of life ...

Six parrot species are set to be banned in the Auckland region due to the dangers they pose to native wildlife. Is this fair? The bird watches me with an inquisitive eye. She’s huge, nearly a metre ...

Finding patterns in cat behaviour would help us to stop feral cats from chewing their way through native bat roosts and bird life. And so a group of New Zealand researchers pored over 36 studies from ...

Siren crews offer belonging and creativity as much as resounding treble or volume—all of which were on display at New Zealand’s first-ever national siren battle. On wide, empty streets in the ...

In spite of a widespread belief that their race and culture are extinct, Moriori people have survived on the Chatham Islands and are undergoing a cultural revival similar to that of their mainland ...

A study by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency of illegal, unreported and unregulated tuna fishing has found that the problem may not be as bad as was feared. It estimated that between 2017 and ...