Nature / Sustainable Tourism

Visitors to the International Antarctic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, could be surprised to learn that feeding the parking meter is helping to save penguins.

The ubiquitous iPod might be a familiar sight on the street these days, but in New Zealand the digital music players are being used in remote native forests to train rare birds.

Passengers on a whale watching safari were treated to a rare marine spectacle when two blue whales surfaced in the Hauraki Gulf, not far from Auckland city shores.

Sirocco, the pin-up boy and darling of New Zealand’s high profile conservation efforts with the endangered kākāpō parrot population, is about to take off for somewhere he’s never been before – the big city.

Whakatane – a small east coast town in New Zealand’s North Island – wants to become ‘Kiwi capital of the world’, claiming it’s the only place on earth where it’s possible to hear kiwis calling from the main street.

A programme to save an endangered bird is having a commercial spin-off for New Zealand’s lucrative wine-growing industry.

Dolphins are renowned for helping humans in trouble at sea but a group of fishermen off New Zealand’s Northland coast have returned the favour by freeing a dolphin caught in a fishing long-line.

The world’s smallest penguins are about to be given a big hand up with their own VIP – very important penguin – nesting area at EcoWorld in New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds.

Conservation Week 2009 promises some close encounters of the environmental kind as New Zealand celebrates its unique wildlife, natural areas and historic places with many nationwide events.

Five rare kākāpō chicks – the last from the 2009 breeding season – have been released from their temporary outdoor pens, and are now roaming free on an island sanctuary in New Zealand’s deep south.