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 ...

Here we are—a nation of parents, grandparents and children all in the same boat, together at home. He waka eke noa. Every day of the lock-down we will post a story or video and set of activities that ...

The tradition of kava has brought people together and consummated important social occasions in the Pacific for 3000 years. The use of kava is growing in New Zealand, with some 25,000 drinkers ...

Retreating glaciers and thinning snow and ice are the future of New Zealand’s mountains. Climate change is predicted to warm the country’s atmosphere by 1–4°C by the end of the century, altering the ...

The Mokohinau stag beetle is one of the world’s most endangered species, occupying less than an acre of scrub on a rocky tower in the middle of the ocean. Its habitat is so precarious that Auckland ...

New Zealand Geographic readers may recall from 1999 and 2002 issues of this magazine, the walk stories from Te Araroa—The Long Path. A lone hiker—it happened to be me—just went out and did it, Cape ...

Feijoas have become a New Zealand emblem. So how did they end up in Aotearoa, and how did we end up adoring them—to the point of obsession, for some—when feijoas have not really caught on anywhere ...

In the last century illegal whisky production in Southland’s Hokonui Hills was a subject of police investigations. Today that shady past is a cause for celebration. The legend of Hokonui leads back to ...

The planting of Russell lupins as sheep feed in the Canterbury high country is triggering a clash between farming and conservation values. In early summer, photographers jostle for space on the ...

One of the rarest ecologies in the world is hiding in plain sight, in the centre of the most central suburb of the largest city in New Zealand. Of more than 5000 hectares of rock forest that once ...

It is now more than a century since the call of the huia―musical, swooping and evocative―echoed through the forests of the Urewera, Ruahine, Rimutaka and Tararua Ranges. Considered tapu by Māori, this ...

The ocean is our playground, storehouse, transport corridor, driver of weather and coastal change. We’ve learned the hard way that it’s possible for us to exhaust its resources and overwhelm its ...