Blogger: Conservation Advocate for Forest & Bird, Karen Baird Fairy tern – given the name you’d think it was a mythical creature. But no, it’s alive and kicking. Well only just – there are only about 36-40 individuals (and 8 breeding pairs), giving it the unenviable title of ‘our rarest indigenous bird’.  Once widespread on […]

Blogger: Wellington’s E-waste coordinator Mike Ennis If I had my way, dumping electronic-waste would almost be as unsexy as smoking. It’d draw furrow brows, pursed lips and derisory snorts from onlookers. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Around 80,000 tonnes of e-waste gets dumped every year in our landfills, and with the rage that is […]

Blogger: NIWA biodiversity scientist Dennis Gordon “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles,” British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane once quipped. That’s because there are more named beetle species than any other form of life. The same might be said of worms. You might not realise it but vermiform (worm-like) is the most widely adopted shape in […]

Last week, I met up with frogologist  Dr Phil Bishop down at Otago University. In this video he explains how our frogs are going to be affected by the government’s mining proposals. Mandy  

Blogger: Forest & Bird’s North Island Conservation Manager, Mark Bellingham Back in the day, I was what you’d call a rock man. I did my undergraduate degree in geology, and since then I have kept in contact with people in the industry. The industry is a tight-lipped one, but this Geological & Nuclear Science report […]

Blogger: Tramp-o-holic &  Forest & Bird’s (near newest) Conservation Advocate, Quentin Duthie. Nic Vallance, Forest & Bird’s newest staff-member, has upstaged me. The first blog from the self-confessed “nature nerd” came in her first week. Quick work Nic! I’ve already been here a month, but it’s never too late to start blogging. After all, Claire Browning’s […]

Blogger: Forest & Bird’s (newest) Conservation Advocate, Nic Vallance. Gidday everyone, I’m Nicola (Nic) Vallance, and I’ve just taken up a role as Conservation Advocate based in Christchurch, working on the Mackenzie campaign, mining, and pest control .  I’ve just finished my first week, so it’s all pretty new, but I’m quite excited to be […]

Blogger: Kea hunter, Corey Mosen Bound for the mountains yet again, I loaded up my car – a low-slung vehicle 1996 Nissan Skyline not designed to be a work horse around the mountains – and wheeled down to Wellington’s ferry terminal. And after a day’s travelling, I was there at my destination – rain-filled St […]

Blogger: Web Manager for Forest & Bird, Mandy Herrick A few years back, I lived in China. Yes, for two whole years, I sucked back lungfuls of their toxin-laced air, drank their increasingly polluted waters and ate their chemical –riddled fish. And unnoticed by me (I was an entertainment reporter), day by day, I think […]