As a former press photographer I always used to dread Friday the 13^th.  Not because I’m superstitious but because the editor always expected an outstanding Black Friday photo for the front page. My colleagues and I would be sent out to get photos of black cats and people walking under ladders – often with lame results. However, those memories were quickly forgotten on this Friday the 13^th as our team of volunteers created a stunning Black Friday photo opportunity right on the Wellington waterfront.

Black Friday means bad luck and for sharks swimming in New Zealand waters every day is Black Friday. That’s because here it’s still legal to catch and kill a shark, slice off its fins and throw its body back in the ocean. If you follow our blogs you’ll already know that – but most Kiwis don’t.... Read more >

Who likes being lied to by people paid by the oil industry who pose as “experts” on climate change?

Did you know it’s been going on for 25 years?

In a couple of weeks, the UN’s official advisors on climate change science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will update its global assessment on the issue.  Yet in the background, more attacks on the climate science are underway.

For the last quarter century, the climate science denial machine, its cogs oiled by fossil fuel money, has been attacking climate science, climate scientists and every official US report on climate change, along with State and local efforts – with the aim of undermining action on climate change.

Our new report, Dealing in Doubt, sets out the history of these attacks going back to the early 90s.  T... Read more >

Earlier this week I wrote about the start of New Zealand’s first-ever Shark Awareness Week. I should have also mentioned that it’s Conservation Week. Not that you’d know that when it comes to looking after life in our oceans.

Last Friday the government announced it was further delaying plans to increase protection measures for Maui’s dolphin, already on the cusp of extinction, and less than 24 hours later announced it was massively scaling back its proposal for a marine reserve in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.

As Labour’s Conservation and Environment spokesperson Ruth Dyson said after the Ross Sea back-down it doesn’t appear that conservation is a government priority at all. There’s certainly been scant evidence to prove otherwise.

Let’s start with Maui’s dolphin. Eighteen months ago the governm... Read more >

Sharks are in for an image makeover during New Zealand’s first-ever Shark Awareness Week which starts today!

Sharks often make the headlines for the wrong reasons so this week a series of events around NZ will focus on the vital role sharks play in maintaining the healthy balance of the world's oceans.

The events will also highlight the need for improved shark conservation in New Zealand, including a ban on shark finning.

Over the week there will public talks about sharks, shark encounters, art inspired by sharks and New Zealand singer Jamie McDell will dive with the sharks. You can see the full schedule here.

Organised by the New Zealand Shark Alliance, which includes Greenpeace and lots of other groups, New Zealand’s first Shark Awareness Week has been timed just ahead of the government’s ... Read more >

This is the second blog in what is now an occasional series, that we’ve decided to call ‘Steven Joyce doesn’t understand…’. After writing Wednesday’s blog called ‘Steven Joyce doesn’t understand economics’ it swiftly became uncomfortably obvious that we’d get enough material to turn it into a series.

Today’s is called ‘Steven Joyce doesn’t understand irony’. We were going to call it ‘Steven Joyce doesn’t understand democracy’ but we’re pretty certain that ‘Big J’ is going to give us plenty of opportunity to come back to that one.

Anyway, back to today’s edition of SJDU. The whole ‘not understanding irony’ thing has been done before. Most notably about how the well-known ditty called Ironic by songstress Alanis Morissette completely misunderstands irony. Which is ironic.

What isn’t ironic... Read more >

It’s been a year since Greenpeace in Australia took action against the Margiris super trawler and to mark the anniversary – admittedly coincidentally – Greenpeace activists in Chile protested against the presence of the monster boat in their waters.

Holding up banners that read, "Not here, Not anywhere" and "Stop plundering our oceans", Greenpeace activists took to the port in Valparaiso on Friday. Two activists also tried to board the 142 metre-long Margiris in order to stall her return to the South Pacific where she fishes on stocks that are in a perilous state.

Local Chilean fishermen, who have seen their own fish stocks plummet due to overfishing, supported our peaceful protest. Although the Margiris does not fish inside Chilean waters, she operates close enough to anger the local f... Read more >

It is time to get reinspired as a nation.

To feel proud again of those things that have made our country the coolest little country on earth.

And to remember how it was that we got our country that way. It wasn’t by sitting on our arses!

A Call to Action was mooted amongst groups working to defend our country from risky fossil fuel expansion. Then some people loved and respected were asked if they might be part of that call.

They were phoned and emailed and one after another – people said yes and often with great enthusiasm.

We asked doctors, academics, musicians, activists and entrepreneurs.

When we thanked writer/poet Albert Wendt for his participation he said “I feel honoured to be a small part of something I believe in.”

Maria Tyrrell, the daughter of Captain Alan Tyrrell of the ... Read more >