Resource library

Liz Carter has been awarded Forest & Bird’s prestigious Old Blue for outstanding service to the Napier branch, including more than three decades as a committee member.

Patricia (Pat) Heffey of Kamo has been awarded Forest & Bird’s leading Old Blue honour for her decades working to protect nature in Northland, including her leading role in saving Ngunguru Sandspit from development. 

Forest & Bird has named Waitākere as the winner of its annual branch award for its outstanding work in protecting and advocating for nature in West Auckland.

Sophie Handford has been named winner of Forest & Bird’s Te Kaiārahi Rangatahi o te Taiao youth award after a year in which she led New Zealand’s School Strike 4 Climate movement and became one of the youngest ever local body councillors.

Climate change is likely to see the demise of a rare species of kānuka on a tiny island in the Bay of Plenty, but local plant lovers are determined to keep it alive on the mainland. By Meg Collins* 

2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Forest & Bird’s record-breaking petition that saw nearly one in 10 Kiwis signing to save Lake Manapōuri. By Caroline Wood

Our rivers, lakes, and wetlands will have better protection from new freshwater rules, but a few key omissions leave it to chance whether our freshwater can be brought back from the brink.

The new National Action Plan for protecting seabirds from commercial fishing hooks and nets has made a big leap forward, with a new goal of reducing seabird deaths to zero.

Forest & Bird’s annual Be With a Tree celebration this year focuses on the intangible benefits of trees to people. 

Forest & Bird has laid an urgent complaint with the Chief Ombudsman, after MBIE officials took 30 days to refuse a request to release information on how the decisions are being weighted on nearly 2000 ‘shovel-ready’ project proposals.
 

Forest & Bird is appearing in the Supreme Court in Wellington today against Stevenson Mining, the coal company planning an opencast mine on the pristine mountain top of Te Kuha on the West Coast of the South Island
 

A $1 billion investment in environmental jobs is a significant boost for New Zealand’s struggling native wildlife, rivers, wetlands, and forests but Forest & Bird isn’t calling Budget2020 a victory for people and planet just yet.  

The modification of rivers for flood management, irrigation, and agriculture has resulted in a decline in the geomorphic condition and habitat quality of river systems.

Forest & Bird is relieved that an urgent court order has been granted to protect a highly significant ecosystem at Kaitorete, a narrow stretch of ecologically significant land between Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere and the sea.
 

This isn’t a walk in the park, I reflect, as I struggle to keep on my feet while scrambling up

The Ministry for the Environment's (MFE) latest report on fresh water warns that without rapid change in how we treat our environment, New Zealand's identity, wellbeing, cultural values, and economy are at risk (Pg 14).

We need nature, and nature needs us to make a change for the better.

Agricultural leaders calling for environmental rules to be ditched in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic are not only putting environmental health at risk, but public health too, says Forest & Bird.

The New Zealand Bird Atlas 2019–2024 is an ambitious five-year initiative to map the country’s unique birdl

NGOs urge a green COVID-19 recovery 

I was brimming with anticipation when four of us set off to check bat traps before da

Forest & Bird is celebrating a Court of Appeal decision this afternoon that the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) was wrong to rubber-stamp a proposal to mine the sea floor off the Taranaki Coast.

As native forests warm, ship rats will move into new areas. Lynley Hargreaves investigates what that will mean for New Zealand’s most precious “deep endemics” such as mohua and kiwi.

The fungi fun quiz featured in the Autumn 2019 issue of the Forest & Bird magazine.  Sign up as a Forest & Bird member to receive your copy (in print or digital). 

Nearly 8,000 individuals made a submission calling for the introduction of a catch limit, fishing licence, and data collection to the whitebait fishery, through a Forest & Bird online submission page.  

No kōkako chicks survived in four monitored nests this summer at Forest & Bird’s Ark in the Park in the Waitakere Ranges.

Forest & Bird is urging the Government is take action to save some of New Zealand's most loved animals, Māui and Hector's dolphins, from extinction. 

Forest & Bird has expressed deep horror and sadness that kauri dieback has been confirmed in Puketi Forest, and are demanding the government fund and implement the stalled National Pest Management Plan for kauri dieback.

Forest & Bird has released a series of before and after satellite images showing some of the thousands of hectares of native habitat cleared across the country in recent years.

Forest & Bird has sent a letter to the Prime Minister, and other Government Ministers, asking for increased funding for essential wilding pine control.
 

Auckland's rare bats could get a badly needed boost if a government plan to strengthen environmental policy goes through, says Forest & Bird.

Summary of Forest & Bird's submission to Department of Conservation on whitebait management:

New Zealand’s six whitebait species are at risk. If something urgent is not done to conserve these species, they could be lost forever.