New Zealand Geographic

11/11/2024

Trees use the summer solstice as a starting gun, scientists have discovered.

08/11/2024

Every winter, tens of thousands of New Zealanders fly to the Cook Islands. For them, it’s a week in the sun. But what does the influx mean for the islands?

📷 Ruth McDowall

Every winter, tens of thousands of New Zealanders fly to the Cook Islands. For them, it’s a week in the sun. But what does the influx mean for the islands?

06/11/2024

Lead is highly toxic—but to kea, the metal tastes like a sweet treat. So for years, the native parrots have been dying of lead poisoning: enduring vomiting, seizures, cognitive decline, and starving.

📷 Tim Norman

Lead is highly toxic—but to kea, the metal tastes like a sweet treat. So for years, the native parrots have been dying of lead poisoning: enduring vomiting, seizures, cognitive decline, and starving. Because kea are often seen chewing on lead nails, flashing and paint from backcountry huts and oth...

02/11/2024

The 190th issue of New Zealand Geographic is out in stores and online now! In stores and online at nzgeo.com

01/11/2024

If the South Island kōkako is not extinct—if, as many believe, a handful of the birds are still alive in the forests of the West Coast—they’re doing a very good job of staying hidden. There hasn’t been an accepted sighting since 2007. But in the mechatronics lab of the University of Canterbury, a remarkable new search tool is taking shape.

📷 Richard Robinson

If the South Island kōkako is not extinct—if, as many believe, a handful of the birds are still alive in the forests of the West Coast—they’re doing a very good job of staying hidden. There hasn’t been an accepted sighting since 2007. But in the mechatronics lab of the University of Canterb...

29/10/2024

New Zealand Geographic has been an icon of environmental journalism for 35 years, but times are changing, and we need your help to survive.

Over the next few weeks we will be taking the unusual step of opening our finances and forward plans so that readers can be involved in the future shape of New Zealand Geographic and the role our journalism plays in the public conversation. We hope this paints a picture of where we’re at, where we’re going, and how you can help.

New Zealand Geographic has been an icon of environmental journalism for 35 years, but times are changing, and we need your help to survive.

26/10/2024

On Thursday night finalists, well-wishers, sponsors and the New Zealand Geographic team gathered for this year's Photographer of the Year awards night. It was opened by a karanga and mihi from Ngāti Whātua, then a keynote address from a long-lost son of New Zealand photojournalism, Simon Townsley. The key take-away was that "truth survives in the light", and it's the photographer's duty and privilege to reveal it.

Photojournalism as a craft and profession is under extraordinary pressure with the devolution of creative rights, the decline of commercial media, the dominance of photography and the looming presence of generative AI. In this setting it is humbling and encouraging to see photographers producing world class work, as dedicated as ever to present a pure clear vision of our environment and society.

See the winning images in 2024 below.

Each frame is a photographer’s gallant attempt to describe the world in front of them—a real image of Aotearoa, and a reflection of who we are as a nation.

24/10/2024

Climate change will help one of the most pernicious pest birds in the country spread south, a new study has found—and reports from Christchurch suggest it’s already happening.

📷 Adobe Stock

Climate change will help one of the most pernicious pest birds in the country spread south, a new study has found—and reports from Christchurch suggest it’s already happening. Common mynas, native to India, were introduced to New Zealand in the late 1800s in an attempt to control agricultural pe...

23/10/2024

Voting closes today!

Final chance to vote for the Ockham Residential People's Choice Award ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Professionally, Liv van Leeuwen often finds herself photographing landscapes and architecture; personally, she documents her family. In this picture, she sought to capture her son’s thoughtful, curious personality, his freckles and long lashes. “With limited time and patience from the subject!” she says.

📷: Liv van Leeuwen, 2024 Portrait Finalist

23/10/2024

Voting closes tomorrow!

It's your last chance to vote for the Ockham Residential People's Choice Award ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Ann Bateman, of Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki, watches the sunrise with her husband, Bo, during a morning karakia to address the new day. The light was very low, so Derek Morrison shot this portrait with a wide-open aperture, knowing it would put Bo out of focus, but allow Ann’s strength and mana to shine through.

📷: Derek Morrison, 2024 Portrait Finalist

23/10/2024

Voting closes tomorrow!

Final chance to vote for the Ockham Residential People's Choice Award ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Anna Naygrow hangs out the washing at her tiny home on the hills near Wakefield, Nelson, where she lives with partner Christoph Riedel and daughter Molly. Braden Fastier first met the family in 2017 when they were building their tiny home. Six years later, he returned to see how they were getting on.

📷: Braden Fastier , 2024 Society Finalist

22/10/2024

Voting closes tomorrow!
Last chance to vote for the Ockham Residential People's Choice Award ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Steven Tallott and his daughter, Sophie, play around on an evening break during the summer harvest on the family farm. Joe Harrison had been hoping to document the harvest for several years, but the timing never worked out. Last summer, he got a text message from Steven’s wife inviting him out, and he jumped at the opportunity. “Just took three years,” he says.

📷: Joe harrison, 2024 Portrait Finalist

22/10/2024

An invisible mathematical thread connects most creatures that fly, Danish physicists have found—and even those that “fly” underwater.

📷: Rob Suisted

An invisible mathematical thread connects most creatures that fly, Danish physicists have found—and even those that “fly” underwater. The group from Roskilde University hit on a universal equation that predicts how fast a creature has to flap its wings in order to lift off. (It’s proportiona...

21/10/2024

Voting closes in 3 days!
Final chance to vote for the Ockham Residential People's Choice Award ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

These emperor penguins had been sitting on the pack ice for some time, while Richard Young glimpsed orca surfacing next to them. Finally, some of the penguins decided it was safe to get back in the sea. “Shortly later, they came flying back up out of the water,” says Young. After noticing one penguin jump up in this spot, Young trained his camera on it and waited.

📷: Richard Young, 2024 Heritage Expeditions Wildlife Finalist

21/10/2024

3 days left to vote!

Final chance to vote for the Ockham Residential People's Choice Award ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Shortly after sunrise, a kāruhiruhi/pied s**g catches its breakfast: a mullet. Jonathan Harrod, hidden in the vegetation on the edge of the estuary, correctly predicted exactly where the s**g would surface from its dive to capture it in focus and backlit by the sun, creating the illuminated droplets of water surrounding it.

📷: Jonathan Harrod, 2024 Heritage Expeditions Wildlife Finalist