This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, and Native News Online. NEW YORK—In February, Cyclone…
When Niueans are babies, their parents traditionally take them down to the seashore and throw them in the water so they learn to swim, Mona Ainu’u told Mongabay. That’s more…
Over the past two decades, fewer vessels have trawled the South Pacific’s high seas. Companies from only one country have kept at it, an island nation with a green reputation:…
In late June, New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer boarded an international flight to begin a 40-hour journey to Lisbon to attend the U.N. Ocean Conference. At various…
RAROTONGA, Cook Islands – Every Saturday, a group of Cook Islands Māori youth slide into scuba gear, grab sticks from the ironwood trees (Casuarina equisetifolia) growing along Rarotonga’s beachfront, and…
On this episode we discuss Indigenous peoples’ long relationship with — and stewardship of — marine environments through the lens of aquaculture. Listen here: Coastal cultures have often enjoyed abundant…
The sixth episode of Mongabay Explores New Guinea shares what was learned from almost two years of investigative reporting by Mongabay, Malaysiakini, Tempo, Earthsight and The Gecko Project, plus what…
At low tide, on many a craggy corner of Aotearoa New Zealand’s coastline, you can find clusters of large, oval, emerald-and-gold bivalves, encrusted with barnacles and sucked tightly onto the…
Small islands, big seascapes: that’s how many Pacific Ocean nations are characterized. Aotearoa New Zealand, a country about the size of the U.K. but with the world’s fourth-largest maritime area,…
From above, the satellite image shows two insignificant dark-colored shapes, like a couple of missing puzzle pieces in a flat sea of green. But on the ground, they represent devastation.…
Though still labor- and time-intensive, 3D printing of beaks, feet and tails holds promise for disabled wildlife ranging from toucans to penguins, and baby elephants; it may even help rare species at risk of extinction.
The kitefin shark is a guitar-sized creature with brownish-black skin and large, gaping eyes. But there is more to this shark than initially meets the eye: in the dark, it will…
A group of students and parents huddled behind a row of wooden boxes in New Zealand’s Godley Valley on the country’s South Island. The box doors were flung open, and…
In an episode of the Netflix dystopian sci-fi show “Black Mirror,” artificial bees have been deployed to pollinate the world’s plants after a massive pollinator extinction. A great idea, until…
Two Māori iwi, or tribal groups, are campaigning for a portion of the New Zealand government’s new COVID-19 economic stimulus package to help save their treasured, ancestral Raukūmara Forest from…
Millions of years ago, giant birds roamed ancient New Zealand. There was the moa, an extinct flightless bird, thought to weigh up to 230 kilogram (510 pounds). Then there was…
In Whāingaroa/Raglan on New Zealand’s (NZ’s) west coast, trapping for introduced mammals that prey on endangered native birds is something of a competitive sport. Karioi Project, a local conservation NGO…
When the British explorer James Cook circumnavigated the islands that he would later call New Zealand in 1769, he described the birdsong on the densely forested archipelago as “deafening.” One…
Many hundreds of years ago, the first Polynesian boats arrived on the shores of what is now known as New Zealand. In the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean, the…
In 1995, there were only 51 kākāpō left on Earth, and it seemed that the giant flightless parrots were headed for extinction. Once abundant in New Zealand, the ground-dwelling kākāpō…
On today’s episode, we speak with Oliver Metcalf, lead author of a recent study that used bioacoustic recordings and machine learning to track birds in New Zealand after they’d been…
When you’re new to an area, it takes time to settle in. We all want a comfortable place to live, in a safe neighborhood, with convenient access to shops and…
Read other stories in this three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s stewardship of its forest. A Māori community leans on tradition to restore its forest What makes a forest healthy?…
Read other stories in this three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s stewardship of its forest. A Māori community leans on tradition to restore its forest Māori community reconnects youth with…
Read other stories in this three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s stewardship of its forest. What makes a forest healthy? Māori knowledge has some answers. Māori community reconnects youth with…
A little-known penguin in New Zealand makes an epic journey for food, a new study has found. The Fiordland penguin (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus), or tawaki as it’s locally known, lives in…
On today’s episode: the sounds of Buller’s shearwaters in New Zealand’s Poor Knights Islands. Listen here: Our guest today is Megan Friesen, a behavioral ecologist who is currently working with…
Spiders are one of the most ubiquitous creatures on Earth, found on every continent except Antarctica. Whether in underground caves in the Amazon or the icy climes of Mount Everest,…
The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) of Sumatra is both the world’s newest known great ape species and its most threatened, after being officially categorized this week as “Critically Endangered,” or…
The massive ocean sunfish -- an odd-looking fish with a flat, rigid, tailless body -- is not only the world's largest bony fish, but also one of the most elusive…
