The social security act was passed 50 years ago in September 1938. It was the culmina­tion of the Labour government’s efforts to ensure its citizens would never again suffer the poverty experienced ...

The difference between exploring and being lost is the ability to return home. Te Rā tells the story of Māori voyaging and weaving technology, and has finally returned home—for now. It’s a cold winter ...

According to my dictionary, “fiord” (also “fjord”) is a Norwegian word meaning a long, deep, narrow inlet of the sea with steep, often mountainous sides, originally eroded by glaciers. By this ...

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 ...

In 1980s New Zealand, fashion was flamboyant and confident—all power suits and Lycra—our cricket test side were on form, and local music had dropped into a golden groove. But economically, things were ...

Kairara: one blink and you will miss it. It’s nothing more than a few farms scattered at the base of Tutamoe Mountain, about 20 km north of Dargaville. Not a tourist in sight on the day I passed ...

The Mackenzie Country is a unique New Zealand landscape: raw, open, full of light. This tussock wilderness is a world away from the organised patchwork quilt of Canterbury, yet is separated from it by ...

Toward the southern end of the Kaingaroa Plains on the volcanic plateau in the central North Island lies an area that, for its altitude, is as cold as anywhere in the country bar inland Otago. In ...

The bird with a big mouth. The bird who leads the flock. The bird who announces the day. The bird who sounds the alarm. The dark bird. The rare bird. The noble, silly, insomniac parrot we’re going to ...

Out there in forest reserves, down remote back roads and tucked away in corners of small towns hide giant tōtara, mataī and rimu. A tiny group of obsessive people, guided by old records and ...

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 ...

Bruce “Chopper” Reay has lived in a remote deerstalkers’ hut on the edge of Fiordland National Park for most of his life. But he’s not exactly off the grid. If you didn’t know better, Bruce Reay and ...