New Zealand Geographic • 21 May 2026

Hope for the underbirds

It is such a dismal winter day at Awarua Bay, near Bluff, that the chimney stack of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is hidden in cloud. The smelter is on the edge of the estuary, on the edge of everything; the sort of place where we build our heavy industry, the sort of place where the birds are.

It’s June 2025, and a handful of the world’s last pukunui, or southern New Zealand dotterels, are spending the winter here. Across Foveaux Strait are the mountaintops of Stewart Island/Rakiura, the b...

The Spinoff • 18 May 2026

NZ’s close shave with the mongoose

New Zealand’s invasive predator problems are bad enough. But we can at least thank our lucky stars that the mongooses introduced into New Zealand in the 1880s never took off.

New Zealand Geographic • 1 April 2025

One pig. One night. Fifty-six frogs.

Have you heard the tale of the frog in the pig? Here’s how it goes. One afternoon in 2010, a hunter was out in Coromandel’s Wharekirauponga Valley when he and his dogs cornered a feral pig in the bottom of a small stream. When he gutted it, he saw the pig’s intestines twitching, and when he slit them open, a tiny frog jumped out. Based on the hunter’s description, it was likely a native species, either an Archey’s or Hochstetter’s frog. That frog had a lucky escape and became the Little Red Ridi...

New Zealand Geographic • 1 November 2023

Land of the bright white light

Two scientists mapping New Zealand’s light pollution have found our nights became a lot brighter over the past decade—and that most of our public lighting is now bright blue-white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) which negatively affect human and animal health.

Te Pūkenga Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology ecologist Ellen Cieraad and wildlife biologist Bridgette Farnworth used satellite data to map New Zealand’s light pollution and found it grew by 37.4 per cent from 2012 to 2021. That’s fa...

New Zealand Geographic • 1 November 2023

Losing the ice

In February, Nelson photographer Virginia Woolf drove to Aoraki/Mount Cook to document glacier loss, as part of her climate change photography project Final Meltdown. But she was worried sick as she hit the road. Four days earlier, Cyclone Gabrielle had struck Gisborne, her childhood home, and she hadn’t heard from her parents since.

She’d spent the past few days in a flurry of calls and texts, even asking a cousin to get their local policeman friend to knock on her parents’ door to check they...

New Zealand Geographic • 1 November 2023

The wall that Frank built

The wall went up in 1964. It didn’t go up very far, mind you—1.4 metres of it was under the ground, with only about 50 centimetres sticking out the top. But Frank Evison, the prominent geophysicist who commissioned it, was satisfied.

Evison died in 2005, but the wall is still there. Low and grey and patched with lichen, set in a grassy river flat in the Maruia valley on State Highway 7, it’s surrounded by beech forest and dotted around with dandelions in the warmer months. If you just happened...

New Zealand Geographic • 18 December 2022

The space balls are coming

Soviet Russia aimed a satellite at Venus. It hit Ashburton.

RNZ • 15 February 2022

Invasive algae threatens world’s clearest lake

Nelson is home to the clearest lake in the world, but it could have a gloomy future - an invasive algae called lake snow has been found nearby. Naomi Arnold went for a hike to find out more.

New Zealand Geographic • 27 August 2021

What storms may come

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. Why are we still buying - and building - properties right in the danger zone?

The Washington Post • 31 December 2020

An island nation’s audacious effort to save its wildlife

If you wanted to design the perfect predator, the stoat would be hard to beat. Introduced in the late 1800s to help control imported rabbits that were overrunning sheep pastures, they quickly became indiscriminate serial killers.

New Zealand Geographic • 28 August 2020

Wildfire

Fire season is coming, and first responders will soon be on high alert around New Zealand. We can expect more extreme wildfires in the future, causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage and endangering homes and lives. How can we better protect ourselves?

The Spinoff • 11 March 2020

The problem with Musk

Elon Musk is flinging long, screamingly bright strings of satellites into space – into our sky – with the noble goal of revolutionising internet access. Star geek Naomi Arnold considers what could be lost.

New Zealand Geographic • 12 December 2019

Let there be night

At no other point in human history has the planet been this bright after the sun sets. But artificial lights affect us, and the environment around us, in subtle ways. What happens to us when there’s too much light in the night?

The Guardian • 14 November 2019

The dawn chorus heralding fresh hope for New Zealand's wildlife

When the conservation trust Project Janszoon released a dozen kākā in Abel Tasman National Park at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, the large, brassy forest parrots settled in quickly. At 3am the next morning they began their customary ear-splitting calls.

New Zealand Geographic • 25 June 2018

What we do in the shallows

The first time Bill Moore dropped a scallop dredge in Golden Bay, just a short distance out from the curving twin wharves of Port Tarakohe, it came back so heavy with scallops that he could barely lift it over the side of the boat.

New Zealand Geographic • 14 December 2017

The robots will see you now

A surge in New Zealand’s elderly population is on the way, yet health and home-care services are already stretched. A joint research project between New Zealand and South Korea—which is already experiencing the demographic swing that awaits us—is investigating one solution: robots.

Wilderness • 16 August 2017

In search of six haunting notes

In the wettest, most inhospitable parts of New Zealand, the search for the South Island kōkako goes on. Wilderness meets those who have never given up hope of finding this elusive bird alive.

New Zealand Geographic • 23 February 2017

New Zealand's next top model

A small group of Kiwi scientists is attempting to construct the ultimate crystal ball: a mathematical model of the Earth’s natural systems so intricate that it can predict the behaviour of our atmosphere, land, seas, and human industry far into the future.

Wilderness • 15 May 2016

From stinging killer to painkiller

An iwi and polytech in Nelson are collaborating on research into the deadly native nettle ongaonga, which might hold secrets to new drugs.

Wilderness • 21 April 2016

Could lead affect hunters’ IQ?

Eric Buenz was dismembering a bighorn sheep he'd shot when the thought struck him: why was the bullet he’d pulled out of the animal about half the size of the one that went in?

Stuff • 11 December 2015

The loneliest snail

In a single pool, in a single Nelson cave lies a critically endangered creature with a curious and little-known history. Naomi Arnold finds about one of the Maitai's secret inhabitants that is found nowhere else in the world.

The Magazine • 11 September 2014

Retweeting New Zealand

The riot of birdsong woke Joseph Banks early that morning. It was January 1770, the beginning of a summer’s day in New Zealand, and the Endeavour was anchored in the smooth waters of Queen Charlotte Sound.

Stuff • 7 June 2011

Secrets of life in an icy grasp

But for a storm and a sled full of fossils, Robert Falcon Scott and his men might have made it.

One hundred years ago this year, they trudged off to take the South Pole, but died in a tent 17 kilometres from safety, out of oil and food, Scott's coat and sleeping bag thrown open as if he had invited in the cold.

NZ Herald • 22 May 2009

Dirty washing

Squirt out your face scrub and rub it between your fingers. If the gritty bits aren't natural ingredients, they are most likely made from polyethylene. In the cosmetics industry they're called microbeads or exfoliating pearls. Dr Mary Sewell just calls them plastic.

Kia Ora • 1 September 2023

Pickle juice

Evi Boston and her partner moved to Nelson from Arizona recently. They’re still looking for jobs. But as soon as they landed and checked out their new flat, they found somewhere to play pickleball.

The Guardian • 4 January 2022

The views were majestic, but halfway up I needed a nap

The first time I walked up Mount Owen, I horrified my boyfriend by curling up beneath one of its famous water-riven karst outcrops and insisting I needed to sleep. We’d broken up six months before, and had just gotten back together to give it another go. That morning, we were both questioning our life choices.

NZ Herald • 12 May 2021

Murchison's secret fishing spot

Down a nondescript country lane near Murchison is one of New Zealand's best-kept secrets: Owen River Lodge, a fly-fishing destination on the edge of Kahurangi National Park that few Kiwis know about, let alone visit.

Stuff • 27 February 2021

In Maruia, an old fishing lodge is reborn

Luxury accommodation can sometimes feel impersonal, steeped in pretentiousness without real connection or warmth. But that’s not the case at Maruia​ River Retreat, tucked beside a wide green trout fishing river in the upper South Island. Instead, the small, sharp and convivial international team makes this a place of true hospitality.

New Zealand Geographic • 25 June 2019

Cecil King’s Hut

There’s nothing like the sight of a hut after a long day’s tramp, but modern DOC huts tend to be rather utilitarian, with their dull colours, corrugated iron, and plywood interiors. It’s always a joy to stumble across those rare huts that have a little more character and give you an insight into how early outdoorsmen and women carved out a living from the tough New Zealand bush.

Wilderness • 19 September 2017

West Coast high

Deep beneath the Paparoa Range, in the dust on the Metro/Te Ananui cave system floor, there’s still a few faint footprints and pawprints, their edges outlined in the shadows of our headlamps. According to Mark, our Underworld Adventures caving guide, they’ve been undisturbed since they were left there in 1963, by a man called Johnny Currie and his dog, Chum.

Discovery • 19 July 2017

How New Zealand’s oldest city became its newest

Grassroots initiatives and local communities have ensured Christchurch hasn't just been rebuilt - it's been reimagined.

NZ Herald • 4 July 2017

Trek through Abel Tasman

A walking tour of Abel Tasman National Park is best done on a full stomach, finds Naomi Arnold.

New Zealand Geographic • 1 May 2016

A walk down memory lane

The first new Great Walk in 24 years is a graveyard, too.

Wilderness • 13 March 2016

The forgotten face of Aspiring

The mysterious North West Face of Mt Aspiring, one of the enduring oddities of New Zealand alpinism, has finally been climbed. Naomi Arnold has the inside story.

BBC • 1 September 2015

New Zealand’s never-ending fire

Unknown to most travellers – and indeed most locals – the tiny South Island village of Murchison is home to a bizarre bowl of flames that burns eternally in the bush.

Stuff • 24 February 2015

Exploring the twists and turns of Bulmer Cavern

In a world where the surface is mapped so closely you can spot a street sign from space, it's easy to think of cavers as the last true explorers. Burrowing deep into the ground, recording and naming everything new that they find, they're the first and sometimes only humans to see what's secreted under the skin of the earth.

The Magazine • 20 November 2014

Delve deep

At some point, when talking to New Zealand professional caver Kieran Mckay, you can’t help but blurt out: “Why?”

Why wedge your fragile body between tons of rock, through passages so pinched that one of them is dubbed “Castration Gap”?

Why camp underground in the wet and filth for days on end, sucking dank air, aware that you could be drowned or crushed at any second? Why risk death when you have no communication with the outside world, and rescue is days away?

Mckay has two different respons

The Sunday Star Times • 27 May 2014

Degrees of separation

Even with increasing numbers at Uluru, you can still marvel at the great rock in peace, writes Naomi Arnold.

Stuff • 12 December 2013

Diving into darkness

Fifty years ago five Nelson men dived into the unknown at the Riwaka Resurgence, charting its black and chilly depths for the first time.

Stuff • 13 January 2013

Culture clash

Tourism has long had an uneasy relationship with the wondrous and deeply sacred land of Uluru, but as Naomi Arnold discovers, it is gradually finding a steadier footing.

Issuu • 30 May 2009

Cold comfort: Sir Edmund Hillary's favourite haunt burns in the Antarctic

The iconic old hut was a safe haven for visitors to Antarctica. Now it's gone.

New Zealand Geographic • 21 May 2026

The Valley

In the opening chapter of his first, remarkable book, Wellington lawyer and journalist Asher Emanuel shows us the gap he is writing into. “No account of statistics or arms-length analysis of policy can quite get to the truth of the matter: that the criminal justice system is operated by people, upon people.” The Valley is the long view, the story that daily journalism, with its focus on the new and different, doesn’t usually tell.

In late 2020, with enough grant money to give him a significant...

The Spinoff • 17 July 2023

Ketamine offers hope to sufferers of severe mental illness

As the evidence of ketamine’s positive impact on depression and other mental illnesses grows, Naomi Arnold talks to Holly, a Dunedin artist and anxiety sufferer whose prescription for the drug has made a huge difference in her life.

RNZ • 19 June 2022

Mentally ill and behind bars

A man with severe mental illness is bouncing between healthcare and prison because he can't get accommodation and treatment. A leading forensic psychiatrist says his and hundreds of similar cases are a human rights violation. Why are we incarcerating our most seriously ill people when it's the worst possible place for them?

RNZ • 16 December 2021

Bad then, worse now: How Covid-19 will hurt retired women

Women are worse off than men in retirement - and experts predict Covid-19 will make things worse. But changes now will ensure women are better off in the future. Should we reimburse retiring women for the gender pension gap?

RNZ • 31 October 2021

Safety fears as supplement sales soar along with Covid cases

Sales of natural health supplements have soared in the time of Covid, but some can cause life-threatening reactions. Experts say they should be treated with the same caution as pharmaceuticals.

RNZ • 27 September 2021

Murder victim's sister in battle to access court documents

A woman whose brother was murdered feels she's in a perpetual battle to access documents about his shocking death. Why is it so hard for victims to get information out of the justice system?

North & South Magazine • 17 June 2021

The Nazi who built Mount Hutt

The untold story of how a former Waffen-SS soldier lied his way into New Zealand — and not only got away with it, but spent the rest of his life as the celebrated founder of New Zealand's best skifield.

New Zealand Geographic • 1 November 2020

The day the Russians came

The second-oldest collection of Māori artefacts in the world—exceeded only by the one amassed by James Cook—is held in Russia. These 200-year-old treasures have immense value to iwi at the top of the South Island, whose ancestors traded with Russian explorers. Now, there’s a movement to bring these taonga home.

New Zealand Geographic • 29 August 2019

Block busters

New Zealand’s forests were cleared at a record pace, and from this destruction, a sport arose: who can fell a tree the fastest? Competitive woodchopping transformed the labour of forestry into a community event. Now, 150 years on, a diminishing number of axemen and axewomen chop for top honours at A&P shows around the country.

Atlas Obscura • 27 August 2019

The vanishing act of New Zealand’s iconic clam

People talk about toheroa like they’re a dream, because these days, they are. The big, delicious surf clams were once plentiful on New Zealand shorelines, before populations suffered a mysterious, catastrophic crash in the second half of the 20th century. Those old enough to have seen the last-ever toheroa season are full of memories.

New Zealand Geographic • 4 March 2018

Gold rush

Mānuka honey has exploded in value in recent years, and now it’s a high-stakes business, attracting hive thieves, counterfeit products, unscrupulous players—and triggering a race for the blossom every spring, wherever the trees are in flower.

New Zealand Geographic • 23 June 2017

Into the weeds

We can’t decide what to call it—marijuana, dope, pot, grass, bud, green, hash, weed, devil’s lettuce, jazz cigarettes—or how to manage it. One thing is certain: cannabis is undergoing a radical image makeover.

New Zealand Geographic • 21 May 2026

How to stand alone

One morning in the Bay of Islands, Nelson lawyer Sally Gepp lowered herself over the side of a boat into the gin-clear waters of Deep Water Cove. She was snorkelling with her family, hosted by environmental groups Fish Forever and the Bay of Islands Maritime and Historic Park. She had worked with these groups and Northland hapū Ngāti Kuta on getting better fishing controls for the Bay of Islands, where overfishing had left many parts of the seabed barren.

In some places the ecosystem was recove...

New Zealand Geographic • 25 June 2023

Losing the ice

In February, Nelson photographer Virginia Woolf drove to Aoraki/Mount Cook to document glacier loss, as part of her climate change photography project Final Meltdown. But she was worried sick as she hit the road. Four days earlier, Cyclone Gabrielle had struck Gisborne, her childhood home, and she hadn’t heard from her parents since.

Stuff • 29 October 2022

How to survive cult reporting

How do you write about people suffering from severe trauma without making it worse? What are the boundaries between journalist and subject? Naomi Arnold writes about five years of watching journalist, cult reporter and friend Anke Richter suffer the weight of those questions while writing her new book Cult Trip.

Stuff • 24 September 2022

The moment Robyn Malcolm snapped

This weekend, one in six New Zealanders will be putting on their game face and grinding through anxiety. It’s something Robyn Malcolm did for years. She opens up to Naomi Arnold about struggling with the crippling condition and why she’s bringing awareness to the issue in a new documentary You, Me & Anxiety.

NZ Herald • 5 August 2022

Caught in the trap of domestic drudgery

Birthing a baby is a brutal shock to body and mind. But one of the hardest things Clementine Ford faced when she gave birth to her son was the shame of being trapped in a world she'd spent her career railing against.

Stuff • 5 August 2022

Barry Crump: The man, the myth, the father

Barry Crump defined what it meant to be a Kiwi man in the last half of the 20th century. So what does it say about New Zealand men that he’s been described by his exes and sons as sadistic, violent, cruel - and most of all, absent?

New Zealand Geographic • 17 December 2020

Good as gold

There’s not much left at Puysegur Point, the south-western-most tip of New Zealand, where a tiny settlement once held on against the thrust of the wind. Concrete foundations, a squat lighthouse, a shed—and a radio repeater, casting a wide, invisible net across the waters of the south.

Newsroom • 9 December 2020

The reluctant profile: Becky Manawatu

It was a damp Saturday afternoon in Westport at the end of August, and we stood on the sidelines at a rugby league match, not looking at each other. It was patently obvious that author Becky Manawatu didn’t particularly want to do this profile, and she couldn’t be blamed for that. All profiles are akin to being flayed alive, particularly if you’re someone who doesn’t really want the spotlight.

New Zealand Geographic • 29 August 2019

The sense of belonging

When Melanie Burford teaches the art of documentary photography, she teaches curiosity, respect, and trust.

“I teach moments,” she says. “The gift of what we do, and the responsibility that comes with it.”

New Zealand Geographic • 28 June 2018

The inheritance

Māori astronomy expert Rangi Matamua is bringing the astronomical knowledge of his ancestors into the light.

New Zealand Geographic • 1 July 2016

Natural history 2.0

In a stream in Wellington there lives a snail. A tiny snail, found nowhere else in the world. Not much is known about it, other than it’s critically endangered and lives near Siobhan Leachman’s house. Leachman, a lawyer in a former life, is one of the few people to know about the snail—and, arguably, one of the few who cares.

Stuff • 27 January 2016

National Portrait: Rose Renton, medical marijuana campaigner

The summer before he got sick, Nelson teen Alex Renton grew his first and only cannabis plants with his mother Rose, in a half-barrel in the garden. She'd told him no, originally – it wasn't worth it. She'd seen how cannabis convictions had ruined the lives of others.

Stuff • 24 May 2014

Hard times and healing

For some, former Nelson Catholic boys' school Sunnybank was a place of loneliness and horrors. Recently, Wellington writer Hinemoana Baker visited the school with her father, and is turning his ghastly memories into poetry.

Stuff • 5 May 2014

Renee's battle with Tourette's

Curiously, Renee Harvey's tics go away when she sings. When she raises her voice above the happy din of her 2-year-old son Neko and sings her favourite songs, it's the only time her hands stay still.