That isn’t a cheerful bonfire, it’s a massive cleanup operation. In Tairāwhiti the beaches are smothered in dead wood. Mountains are sliding into rivers; forests swarm with possums. While officials ...

This afternoon I watched as members of the public streamed through the atrium in Britomart, downtown Auckland, clutching boxes of sushi or staring into the abyss of their mobile phones. They would ...

This week I've had the pleasure of being in Fiji to welcome sailors participating in Citizens of the Sea—the ocean data programme we launched with Cawthron Institute in May. To date they have ...

You may have seen we ran a poll for readers to help us with our decision on the cover of the latest issue—an electric blue freshwater crayfish, or a gnarled bonsai tree. The bonsai won, and ever since ...

The migration of Oceania’s humpback whales, and their final destination in Antarctica, has remained shrouded in mystery. This year, a team of scientists travelled north to intercept and track the ...

Grebes are an ancient group of diving birds, quite unrelated to ducks and swans. The southern, or Australasian, crested grebe is one of New Zealand’s least known aquatic birds, a secretive but ...

The Biblical tale of three magi with gifts has an ecological equivalent at the Three Kings Islands, 53 kilometres north of the New Zealand mainland. There, swept by the cool waters of the Tasman Sea, ...

Fearsome and fast, sharks occupy the top spot in the food chain, but are also the most vulnerable to ecosystem changes. Public attitudes to these apex predators is changing, and scientists are ...

Pumice and ash, scoria and grit-the harsh layers of pulverised volcanic refuse that form Rangipo Dessert east of Mount Ruapehu-may offer little succour to plants, but from such unpromising materials ...