At best, our recycling system is deeply inefficient. Some argue it’s also a deliberate deception—an industry ploy to stop consumers thinking too hard about buying stuff in the first place. But one ...

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 ...

In Lake Wānaka the Australasian crested grebe reigns supreme from a flotilla of nesting platforms strung close to shore. The birds love the platforms. The locals love the birds. But the man who ...

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, ...

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 ...

Society Let the Taiaha be a vessel Almost every year since 1973, tāne Māori of all ages have travelled to an uninhabited island in Lake Rotorua to train in the traditional art of taiaha. They learn ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Our towns and cities are lacking something important, and I was reminded of this during a recent visit to Hong Kong. There, senior citizens fill the social niche that teenagers do in Auckland. They ...

The once abundant Hauraki Gulf is on the brink of collapse, and while science is clear on how to repair it, many are putting rights before responsibilities. Here’s what needs to happen. I’m going to ...