Introduced over 150 years ago as the basis for a fur trade, the Australian brush-tail possum has instead become an ecological plague, chomping its way through millions of tonnes of forest foliage a ...

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 ...

Paul Quinlan wakes up at four, vaguely nervous about the day ahead. The tūī are up particularly early, too, as if to herald a significant dawn. As Quinlan drives south from his home in Kaeo, others ...

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 ...

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 ...

There are more cautionary notes in Māoridom dealing with mana than you could shake the proverbial stick at. It is a source of both personal and collective strength, pride and identity. Mishandled, it ...

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 ...

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 ...

Most manta encounters take place in the area north of Te Hauturu-o-Toi/Little Barrier Island, but their ways are still a mystery, says Lydia Green, who coordinates a database of public manta ray ...

Weather Volcano weather Writing in the sixth century AD, Gregory, Bishop of Tours, recorded in his Historia Francorum (The His­tory of the Franks) a dramatic story of the weather intervening in the ...

There was a sense of expectation as we drove down the broom-lined track towards the Manuherikia River. It was December 2001, and we hoped that exposed layers of sediment in the Bannockburn Formation ...

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 ...