Talking points Archives - New Zealand Geographic

Submission: Fast Track Approvals Bill

The coalition’s new Fast Track Bill not only swings open the door for environmentally destructive projects, it is also anti-democratic, lacks in checks and transparency, has excessive powers for ministers, offers inadequate opportunity for public feedback, puts unjustified limits on justice and fails to recognise our existing international commitments. Perhaps worst of all, it is […]...

Nov 16: Make a Solar Cookie Oven

Make a solar cookie oven!...

Nov 15: Box dolls-house

Box dolls-house!...

Nov 12: Make your own lollies

Make your own lollies!...

Nov 10: Make a sundial

Make a sundial!...

Nov 9: “Running Kid” flip book

“Running Kid” flip book!...

Nov 8: Finger Knitting

Finger knitting!...

Nov 5: Make a magazine-strip collage

Make a magazine-strip collage!...

Nov 4: Make a bent-legged Kakī

Make a bent-legged Kakī!...

Nov 1: Make a batch of scones

Make a batch of scones!...

Oct 29: Make a Box Guitar

Make a box guitar!...

Oct 28: Make stuffed grapevine leaves

Make stuffed grapevine leaves!...

Oct 27: Surface Tension Experiment

Surface tension experiment!...

Oct 25: Home-made Jigsaw

Home-made jigsaw!...

Oct 22: Nature Journaling

Nature journaling!...

Oct 21: Have a Foot Bath

Have a foot bath!...

Oct 19: Print with Foam or Polystyrene

Print with foam or polystyrene!...

Oct 18: Make an Upside-Down Planter

Make an upside-down planter!...

Oct 15: Make a Collage

Make a collage and parakeets!...

Oct 14: Make a Sediment Jar

Make a sediment jar!...

Magazine

Issue 200

Jul - Aug 2026

Solar power
Horses of Huntly
Forget me not
Whaling
Red admirals

When a male South Island robin is in want of a mate, he sings. It’s not a glamorous sound, says ecologist Manaia Pearmain-Fenton. Plee plee plee / chee chee chee. Loud, plinky, like a kid picking at a keyboard. Pearmain-Fenton has whakapapa to Ngāti Hokopū, Ngāti Awa and Te Whakatōhea in the Bay of Plenty. […]...

In the field

The photographic duo who dive by night

When the forecast is just right, Irene and Crispin Middleton wake up in the middle of the night and put to sea....

Great Walks

Otaki River Gorge

Tararua Forest Park, 2 days...

Profile

Lord of darkness

Charles Alcock and the fate of the universe....

Profile

Deep impact

Marine scientist and freediver Kura Paul-Burke on restoring the moana—with action, not just research....

Features

The town that whales built

The blast of the harpoon may have given way to the click of the camera, but whales are still the cornerstone of commerce—and the subject of many a decorative mural—in the north Canterbury town of Kaikoura. In little more than a decade, marine ecotourism has transformed a coastal backwater into an international travel hotspot....

Editorial

Editorial

The wind tore at the wave tops until they stood up stiff, driving spray from their crests which was carried with the breeze and lit up by the early morning sun until the air itself seemed filled with glitter. Though the forecasters had predicted a gentle zephyr for the final day of a voyage around […]...

Geo News

Bird puzzle: solved

For decades, the extinct endemic bird known as the Hodgens’ Waterhen has flummoxed taxonomists—since the first fossils were found in 1955 the flightless species, which favoured swamps and grasslands, has bounced between six different genera. But mitochondrial DNA has now settled things: the bird is a gigantic crake, five times bigger than its closest living […]...

Geo News

Why 10,000 steps?

Did you ever get a new Fitbit? Did you then spend the next few weeks compulsively checking your wrist, seeing how ‘good’ you’d been that day? Did you take the dog for an extra walk at 10pm just to watch the device tick over 10,000 steps, and go to bed basking in the glow of […]...

Editorial

Freezing time

As early as 1793, the Frenchman Nicephore Niepce and his brother Claude imagined a photographic process, and experimented with various light-sensitive substances and cameras. In 1826, Niépce exposed a pewter plate coated in bitumen for eight hours to produce what he called a “heliograph”, or sun drawing, of a view from his window. Unlike his predecessors, who had […]...