Nature / Sustainable Tourism

Scientists surveying ‘china shops’ - or untouched underwater areas - of Fiordland, New Zealand are excited by the discovery of some new and fragile species they believe will add strength to the area being recognised as a world heritage park.

An evocative New Zealand country setting with rustic shed, bush, stream and a strong conservation theme has taken the supreme award at the country’s premier garden show.

New Zealand’s conservation campaign to save the kakapo – the world’s rarest parrot – has reached a new milestone with confirmation that the population of threatened birds has cracked through the 100 mark.

New Zealand’s iconic Milford Sound is now third in the global race to find the world’s ‘Seven Wonders of Nature’ - thanks to enthusiastic on-line voters.

The Southern Hemisphere’s largest garden show, the 2009 Ellerslie International Flower Show, opens its gates next week (11.03.09) at a new home in the South Island city of Christchurch.

It’s not exactly a population explosion, but two newly hatched kakapo chicks on a remote New Zealand island are another small step in the recovery programme for one of the world’s most endangered birds.

New Zealand’s bid to have a World Heritage Starlight Reserve in the sky above Lake Tekapo and Aoraki Mount Cook, in the South Island’s Mackenzie Country, has moved a step closer.

Tourism New Zealand’s ‘Have Your Say’ mobile studio with its authentic bird’s nest film set could become more of a love nest if international tourists take up a special Valentines Day offer.

Tourists at the Tasman Glacier terminal face, in Aoraki Mount Cook national park, witnessed a three-metre high wave as a giant iceberg plunged from the glacier into the terminal lake on Tuesday (10.02.09).

With selection of a New Zealand woman to ski to the South Pole in next year’s Commonwealth Women’s Antarctic expedition in the final stages, two Kiwi hopefuls are enduring arduous training in sweltering heat to prepare for life on the ice.